This December we celebrate THE FOUR. Students of Graphic Design History might think we are talking about Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his wife Margaret MacDonald, her sister Frances MacDonald and Herbert MacNair who met at evening classes at the Glasgow School of Art and became a collaborative group, "The Four".At SDCC Graphic Design, THE FOUR also refers to four young designers who got their start at City College then transferred together to Academy of Art University, San Francisco on full tuition scholarship in the Fall 2015. Yvonne Anaya, Pauline Capote, Fannie Ko and Harry Kim pictured above are now sharing a house and working together on Bachelors and Masters Degrees in San Francisco. All four of the students had winning portfolios at the American Institute of Graphic Arts San Diego portfolio review in categories like Best Designer as Entrepreneur, Best Design for Good and Best Packaging. At City College Graphic Design we greatly value our close relationship to the Academy of Art San Francisco's incredible design program, especially Mary Scott, Executive Director of Graphic Design. We are deeply grateful to Mary and the Academy for their support of our program and students through the years. What an incredible, life changing opportunity for these four talented designers.We wanted to check in on them this month...FROM FANNIE:

• The nature and weather here has been pretty gorgeous. It's nice living with everybody that came up from the SDCC program because we get to have quality feedback when working at home. SDCC provided a great foundation for my understanding of graphic design and introduced me to the incredible design community.
• I'm taking 3 classes right now, Visual Literacy, Type Composition, and Cultural Anthropology. I'm learning so much about conceptual thinking, asking lots of questions and exploring how design works outside of the design world. Similar to the Portfolio classes, all my classmates seem just as invested in their work as we were to our portfolios. The workload is pretty intense. If I'm not at school or working, I'm doing homework every day. On some weeks, I would say it's comparable to the last couple weeks before the Portfolio Review at San Diego City College.
• I like the structure of this program and that we are each assigned an academic counselor that follows up with each on of us periodically. There are lots of resources like extra labs, tutors, online resources, a very large library, computers, printers and scanners. In the graduate program we also work with a teacher's assistant to consult on their interpretation of an assignment and it's teaching me how to create an independent and unique process for myself.
• Culturally, I'm really enjoying going to the City, outside of how expensive it is everywhere. Our commute is about 1 hr to class 2 days a week and it costs about $10-$13/day for the commute. The residents here seem to be all involved in a Startup, Twitter, Yelp, Salesforce, or some kind of Tech company.

I still miss San Diego a lot, though. I miss the direct teacher access at SDCC, the beach, the people and the vibes. Hope you all are doing well!FROM PAULINE:I'd love to share my thoughts about my experience so far at school. I hope that what I say can inspire others to take a similar path.My main reason for coming back to school was to simply learn more. Once I graduated from City, I worked two years and I suddenly felt like I hit a wall. Nothing against the company because I really loved my job, but I just didn't have total confidence in my skill set. I wanted to be more educated on a broader spectrum of skills needed to be a successful graphic designer. I could've kept my job and took classes online, but the idea of working in person with teams of other knowledgable, curious, and driven students seemed much more appealing.Now in week 11, I can safely say that I am on the right track and continue to accomplish my goals week after week. I've learned how to code a website using html, create an animated video using after effects, wire-frame an entire app, and properly present myself as a professional. These are just some of the skills I've attained in a matter of weeks. The classes are extremely informative and useful. Having spent some time in an agency, I can make the connections between the class curriculum and the real world. I now know how different aspects of my education will be beneficial in the future.It's a fast paced program, but manageable if you are self-disciplined. The classes are generally once a week for about three hours, and every week there is homework. The homework usually includes spending a good amount of time working and problem solving outside of the class room. I think it's overall a great way to become a confident independent designer and teaches you how to properly time manage.For any of your students who are considering furthering their education, I'd highly recommend attending AAU.