CCA requires that all students own an external storage device and laptop that meets our minimum system requirements. This requirement will help ensure that all students have access to the college’s digital resources at home or on campus.

• Undergraduate students are required to own a laptop that meets the minimum system requirements for software used in the First-Year curriculum or their intended major. Refer to the Program Technology Requirements page for specific program/major requirements, if your major is NOT listed the FIRST-YEAR (general CCA laptop) and external drive specifications will be appropriate.
• Graduate students are required to own a laptop that meets the minimum system requirements for software used in their intended program. Students should refer to the Program Technology Requirements page for specific laptop requirements, if your program is NOT listed the FIRST-YEAR (general CCA laptop) and external drive specifications will be appropriate.

FIRST-YEAR (general CCA laptop) recommended model for 2024:

• Apple 14-inch MacBook Pro - M3 Standard chip with 8-core CPU
  10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
  MINIMUM 16GB unified memory
  MINIMUM 512GB SSD storage
  Liquid Retina XDR display
  Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
  Purchase here: CCA / Apple Online Store Bundles (System Recommendation No. 5)

*Undergraduate students who know their intended major should purchase the laptop recommended here
*Graduate students should purchase the laptop recommended for their program here.

Please note that an iPad or other tablet is NOT adequate for running most of the software used in classes.

All CCA students are required to own an external storage device for saving coursework and backups of digital work. When working with high-resolution image files, motion graphics, and video files, a great deal of data storage space is needed.

• External storage device:
  Connects via USB, 1 TB (Terabyte) minimum storage space
  Purchase here: CCA / Apple Online Store Bundles (System Recommendation No. 7 & 8)

• CCA Adobe Creative Cloud accounts are available to students, learn more: here
• Other required software will be provided to students as needed for class, learn more at: Creative Software