FAQ

Gnomon offers courses for all skill levels, ranging from beginner to advanced. Whether a particular course is appropriate for you depends on your prior experience as well as your personal development goals. We recommend speaking with an Admissions Advisor to determine if this is the right path for you.

Yes! Students interested in taking individual courses, either on-campus or online, may benefit from a conversation with an Admissions Advisor. Advisors can help you choose courses that are designed to meet your specific goals, taking into consideration your current skill level, weekly schedule, timeline, and budget. If you'd like help choosing courses, please contact our Admissions Office.

Students looking to enroll in individual courses must be 18 years of age or above. Please visit the How to Enroll section for more information.

Yes, you do not need a portfolio to enroll in individual courses. However, we recommend speaking with an Admissions Advisor to ensure the courses will be appropriate for you based on your skill level and goals.

No, there is no formal process of admission. Please visit the How to Enroll section for more information on how to register.

You may start your individual course(s) at the beginning of any of our four quarterly terms: Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. For more information, please see the Academic Calendar.

Gnomon caps classroom size at 18 students for all courses.

No. Individual courses are intended for artistic development and do not provide a diploma or certificate.

In many cases, yes. Specific courses taken at Gnomon are transferrable to Gnomon’s BFA Degree and Certificate programs. For more information, contact admissions@gnomon.edu.

As individual courses are not part of a program, Federal Student Aid is not available. However, private education loans are available and can cover tuition and estimated living expenses. Interested students may contact the Financial Aid Office for more details.

Scholarships are not currently available for individual courses.

Yes. Gnomon’s individual courses are college-level, for-credit classes. These courses include classwork, homework, and grades.

Each class session is scheduled within a 3-hour block. A class will typically consist of homework review, a short Q&A session, and lecture.

Courses will generally span 10 weeks in length, meeting once per week on a scheduled day and time. Some courses may be offered in a variety of schedule formats. Please check the course schedule for course schedule information.

You should expect to spend 9 to 13 hours a week on in-class coursework and homework, per class.

No. All registered Gnomon students have access to our computer labs, outfitted with production-level workstations and applicable software. Access to the computer labs begins the first week of the term in which you are registered and concludes at the end of the term.

For students who plan to work on a home computer, we recommend acquiring student versions of applicable software.

As with any live class, at some point, a class will need to be canceled or rescheduled. If an instructor needs to postpone a class, the administrative staff will simply extend the class one week. A notification will be sent to the class with information pertinent to the re-schedule. The class will generally meet as scheduled the following week.

If you are unable to attend a class session, simply notify your instructor. Absences may not exceed 30% of the total course time. Students who do not maintain 70% attendance may receive an unsatisfactory grade.

Gnomon is sensitive to the fact that a great deal of information is given in course lectures. Students are encouraged to audio record lectures with instructor permission only, but please note that students must not film lectures, either with a camera or their cell phones, under any circumstances.

Yes!  You can set up a personal campus tour and appointment by contacting our Admissions Office at admissions@gnomon.edu, or by calling our front office at 323.466.6663 during business hours.

Distance education (online) courses are delivered via live broadcast on a preset schedule and are not pre-recorded.

Due to a regulation released by the U.S. Department of Education for higher education institutions, Gnomon's online course offerings are only available to residents of California and those residing outside of the United States.

Gnomon is committed to delivering the highest level of instruction possible, both online and in the classroom. To ensure that you are equipped for success in our online learning environment, we have prepared a quick Self-Evaluation Survey that, if answered honestly, will quickly assess your readiness for online learning success.

Gnomon offers courses for all skill levels, ranging from beginner to advanced. Whether a particular course is appropriate for you depends on your prior experience as well as your personal development goals. We recommend speaking with an Admissions Advisor to determine if this is the right path for you.

You will need a high speed internet connection to view the online lectures. A minimum 1.5 Mbps connection is required.

You can test your internet speed at speedtest.net.

Students taking Gnomon Online classes must meet the minimum system requirements in addition to any additional system specifications required by the software used in the course. You will need a high speed (1.5 Mbps or faster) connection.

For PC-based students:

• Internet Explorer 7.0, Mozilla Firefox 4.0, Google Chrome 5.0 (JavaScript and Java enabled) or the latest version of each web browser
• Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
• Cable modem, DSL, or better Internet connection (1.5 Mbps bandwidth recommended)
• Dual-core 2.4GHz CPU or faster with 2GB of RAM (recommended)
• Webcam

For Mac-based students:

• Safari 3.0, Firefox 4.0, Google Chrome 5.0 (JavaScript and Java enabled) or the latest version of each web browser
• Mac OS X 10.5 – Leopard or newer
• Intel processor (1GB of RAM or better recommended)
• Cable modem, DSL, or better Internet connection (1.5 Mbps bandwidth recommended)
• Webcam

Some wireless connections have a higher occurrence of dropped signals than others. Some issues are simply caused by interference, and others can be attributed to the wireless router. If you are experiencing an issue with dropped or faulty connectivity, it is recommended that you swap over to a hard wired internet connection.

Webcams are mandatory.

All students enrolled in an online course are required to have a working webcam for each class session. Instructors will validate attendance at the beginning of each class using your webcam presence. Failure to have a working webcam will result in the instructor marking the student absent for that class session.

Webcams allow students to communicate directly with the instructor of the class without the distractions of using the chat module in the application. This helps to facilitate a more interactive experience for both the student and instructor.

Not at this time. Lectures are delivered live and in real-time. The interactive experience is, in our opinion, the most effective way to learn. It is therefore the responsibility of the student to take notes and ask questions during the class.

As with any live class, at some point, a class will need to be canceled or rescheduled. If an instructor needs to postpone a class, the administrative staff will simply extend the class one week. A notification will be sent to the class with information pertinent to the re-schedule. The class will generally meet as scheduled the following week.

If you are unable to attend a class session, simply notify your instructor. As you will be missing out on valuable information, you will want to use the forums to see if other students in the class can share their notes or fill you in on what was missed that week. Absences may not exceed 30% of the total course time. Students who do not maintain 70% attendance may receive an unsatisfactory grade.

Each class session is scheduled within a 3-hour block. A class will typically consist of homework review, a short Q&A session, and a lecture.

Courses will generally span 10 weeks in length, meeting once per week on a scheduled day and time. Some courses may be offered in a variety of schedule formats. Please check the course schedule for course schedule information.

Yes. You can expect to spend at least 7-10 hours per week on homework, per class – this will vary depending on the course. This time is spent on weekly assignments, research, tests, and final project submissions.

Yes. Depending on the amount of information in a given week’s lecture, homework reviews may be limited to only a select number of students each week. Homework critiques will be performed in the live classroom session. Some weeks, the instructor may perform in-depth critiques of everyone’s work. If you require help or review on a specific assignment, please let the instructor know at the beginning of class or post your work to the course discussion forum for peer feedback.

You should expect to spend 95 to 130 hours towards each class over the course of a term, or 9 and a half to 13 hours a week.

Students will be responsible for supplying their own computer equipment, software, broadband internet access, and other materials for assignments. Many software developers offer free, personal learning editions of their software. Many also offer educational pricing directly through their websites. Students may also purchase educational versions of most software through studica.com only after student verification is completed. Some software developers require enrollment in full bachelor's degree programs to qualify for the educational versions of their software.

If you are looking for Autodesk software, you may download educational versions of their software at students.autodesk.com.

No. At this time, we do not offer any certificates for taking online classes.

No, only students enrolled in our certificate or degree programs are eligible for Federal Financial Aid, and private education loans are only offered to students who attend classes on campus.

Visit our Academics page for more information on our full-time programs.