Internships are a great way for students to get hands-on, real-world experience in a professional design environment. Every Industrial Design student is required to do an internship while at CCA. This is typically done in the third year, often in the summer prior to the student's senior year.

The ID internship coordinator guides students in their search to find the right internship for their specific design interest. Internships are an important part of the ID student’s education and give the student valuable work experience.

For additional exposure and guidance in their internship search, ID students are encouraged to upload their portfolio to the Industrial Design Portfolio page.

Requirements for the Industrial Design program to account your internship towards graduation are;

• Internships must be related to Industrial Design and/or mentored by a Design trained supervisor. Approval of internship must be requested with an Internship Learning Agreement to the program's Internship Coordinator before the start date of employment.
• Internship must be compensated (with no minimum requirement).

For more information about the internship requirement, please connect with David Gonzalez at dgonzalez@cca.edu.

Attention All International Students: You must obtain work authorization before beginning any internship or off campus employment. Please visit the CPT page of the International Student Services (ISS) website for more information.

Unique Bay Area Advantage

Some of the world’s most creative design thinking is done in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here are just some of the innovative Bay Area-based companies and design firms that have hired CCA Industrial Design students as interns:

Ammunition (San Francisco CA)
Apple (Cupertino CA)
Astro Studios (San Francisco)
Bridge Design (San Francisco)
Citizen (San Francisco)
DesignWorks, USA (Newbury Park)
East Main (Petaluma)
Easton-Bell Sports (Scotts Valley)
Eight, Inc. (San Francisco)
Flextronics Design (San Jose)
Fox Racing (Morgan Hill)
FrogDesign (San Francisco)
FuseProject (San Francisco)
Heath Ceramics (Sausalito)
Hewlett Packard (Palo Alto)
HugeDesign (San Francisco)
IDEO (San Francisco/Palo Alto)
InCase (San Francisco)
JimmyJane (San Francisco)
Jump Associates (San Francisco)
Lab126 (Cupertino)
Lunar (San Francisco)
Mike & Maaike (San Francisco)
Montgomery Pfeifer (San Francisco)
Motorola (Sunnyvale)
New Deal Design (San Francisco)
Nokia (Palo Alto)
The North Face (San Leandro)
One & Co. (San Francisco)
Pablo Lighting (San Francisco)
Peerless Lighting (San Francisco)
Pixar (Emeryville)
Plantronics (Santa Cruz)
Pottery Barn (San Francisco)
Rickshaw Bagworks (San Francisco)
ROFU Design Group (Keen/ChromeBags) (San Francisco/Menlo Park)
Seven02 Design (Palo Alto)
Smart Design (San Francisco)
Society Creative (San Francisco)
Speck Product Design (Palo Alto)
Timbuk2 (San Francisco)
WhipSaw (San Jose)
Williams Sonoma (San Francisco)