# College Scholarships for Lighting Design



## thematthewman (Feb 23, 2014)

Hello,

I have been accepted into CalArts for their Design and Production major! I have been researching scholarships for lighting design but all I have found was architectural lighting, thats not what I do, I have no idea how to design architectural lighting. I was wondering if anyone knows of scholarships for a freshmen going into lighting design at CalArts.


Thanks,
Matt


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## Footer (Feb 23, 2014)

USITT does offer some awards: USITT All of these are aimed at people who have _done_ something, they are not for people who want to do something. 

I know of no scholarships aimed at "Lighting Design". I'll take it back to the last thread you posted on this subject, don't get more schooling then you can afford. There are no free pots of money out there for this industry. Get all you can in scholarships from your university and your community, throw it on an excel, and see if you can make it work. If you can't make it work, DON'T DO IT.


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## ruinexplorer (Mar 7, 2014)

Your best bet on scholarships is not industry specific. You should be targeting any and all money available. This will involve organizations that you or your family may be involved in. You should speak with your school counselor to see if they have specific recommendations. My advice is to apply for every scholarship that you find. This includes ones for as little as $50. There will be a considerable amount of effort to go along with this (essay writing, etc.) so plan on investing that time. Try sites like Fastweb : Scholarships, Financial Aid, Student Loans and Colleges or https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/scholarship-search or https://www.scholarships.com/scholarship-search.aspx or others that your favorite search engine might send you. I'd recommend setting up an email specifically for the search as you may incur a bit of spam utilizing sites like this. Think of your scholarship search as a part time job. Your payment is in the form of scholarships and grants.


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## Lextech (Mar 8, 2014)

Workstudy is also a good thing to apply for. If you can find a job in the theatre department or do like I did and find the university production company, you get paid for on the job training. It usually doesn't pay a ton of money, but, as stated above every little bit helps. Now will it be glamorous work as a first year, probably not unless you really apply yourself. Even then you might spend lots of time cleaning the shop. But there is something to be learned even doing that. If you are like the majority of people I know in this business, you can have a great gig, make good money, for this industry, and you will still take the odd freelance, IA, pick another kind of gig to make ends meet or cover the next upgrade of autocad you need. In those situations you may need to do manual labor and if you expect to do it again you better do a good job.


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