Digital Design Diploma Requirements

In order to be prepared to pursue your degree or diploma, there are a number of requirements we ask that you meet so you are ready to hit the ground running when it comes to your studies. The admissions requirements detail the pre-requisites from an academic standpoint that have to be met. The technical requirements detail what you’ll need for your online learning experience.

Students seeking admission to The Art Institute of Pittsburgh — Online Division must meet the following requirements shown below.

The prospective student must be a high school graduate with a minimum, cumulative, final high school CGPA of 1.5 or higher, or hold a General Education Development (GED) Certificate, or associate's degree or higher as a prerequisite for admission.

Students entering the Digital Design diploma program will be required to take The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Computer Literacy Testout Exam and successfully pass it. Those who do not pass the exam will be required to enroll in the Computer Literacy class (CPU101) and successfully complete it, or provide evidence that the course was taken at the college-level in the past five years, before they will be permitted to enroll. Computer Literacy credits will not count toward graduation requirements and all costs associated with the course will be the sole responsibility of the student.

Online Orientation

Each student who enrolls at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh — Online Division is required to complete an online student orientation prior to the start date of the student's first course. The online orientation helps the student become familiar with different features of the online classroom environment and prepares the student for his or her role as an active learner in the online classroom.

Software Requirements

• Adobe Acrobat Professional
• Adobe Creative Suite - includes Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop
• Apple QuickTime
• Microsoft Office Professional
• Norton Antivirus
• Windows Media Player

Minimum Technology Requirements

Both PC and Mac users should have at least a 1024x768 display (1280x800 recommended) with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphic card, 16-bit color, and 256MB of VRAM, as well as a DVD-ROM drive.

• PC: As a general guideline, students should not have computer specifications less than a Pentium 4 CPU or AMD Athlon 64 processor and one of the following Operation Systems with 4GB of RAM and at least 10 GB of hard-disk space available for installation:
  • Windows XP with Service Pack 3
  • Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (Service Pack 2 recommended)
  • Windows 7
• Mac: As a general guideline, students should not have computer specifications less than a Multicore Intel processor, MAC OSX v10.5.7 or v10.6, 4GB of RAM and a DVD-ROM drive. Students should also have at least 10GB of hard-disk space available for installation.

Web Browser Requirements

PC: At least one of the following browsers with Java enabled:

• Internet Explorer 9.0 (recommended)
• Internet Explorer 8.0 (supported)
• Mozilla Firefox 4.0 (recommended)
• Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (supported)
• Google Chrome 5.0 and higher (supported

Mac: At least one of the following browsers with Java enabled:

• Safari 5.0 (recommended)
• Safari 4.0 (supported)
• Mozilla Firefox 4.0 (recommended)
• Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (supported)
• Google Chrome 5.0 and higher (supported)

Hardware Requirements

• CD or DVD burner
• Color Inkjet Printer
• Color Flatbed Scanner
• Digital Camera

Purchase Computer Hardware and Software

Visit Journey Ed, America's leading seller of hardware and software to students. Select from a wide variety of software programs and purchase all of your required software online - at a student discount.

Note: All courses use the latest version of the software packages required.