At Miami Ad School, a stint in a top agency is part of the curriculum. So, Cutwater San Francisco, 360 New York and Razorfish Sydney are getting ready for the class of April to arrive.

Copywriting student, Samantha Cable, will complete a ten-week ‘agency lab’ by Cutwater in a class of ten students from the world’s Miami Ad Schools.

Art direction student, Will Winter Irving will go to 360.

Art Direction students, Katie Chrystal, Filipe Oliveira and Sophie Robertson, will go to Razorfish.

Miami Ad School ‘agency labs’ are part of the portfolio school’s curriculum. Students in the two year portfolio program spend their first year at any of 14 Miami Ad School’s locations around the world, building foundation skills.

During their second year, they get to study and intern in agencies in most of the world’s adland hotspots.

Clockwise from top left: Sam Cable, Will Winter Irving, Sophie Robertson, Katie Chrystal, Filipe Oliveira.

The agencies provide teachers, who mentor a class of 3 to 10 Students. Students work on agency briefs assigned as classroom projects with their agency mentors. The projects include client work, new business pitches and pro-bono work.

The students also take part in brainstorming sessions and in seminars with other departments such as planning, account services or production so they can see first hand how an agency works.

Samantha Cable stated, “I’m stoked to have been accepted by Cutwater at San Francisco. It’s a quirky creative agency and my time there will give me the opportunity to study new aspects of pop culture and to deepen my copywriting craft. Being awarded the scholarship to Miami Ad School last year has opened up so many opportunities for me. The portfolio course has taught me the skills to move up from intern to designer at the Australian Theatre for Young People after just six months. When I graduate at the end of this year I hope to find an agency that lets me tell stories that challenge, disrupt, inspire, confront and overthrow.”

Christian Behrendt, Razorfish executive creative director and Sandor Moldan, Razorfish creative director, added, ‘It’s been a great experience for the agency to be involved in teaching courses at Miami Ad School. It gives us the opportunity to teach the skills we actually need in the industry. We look forward to seeing professional portfolios from the first crop of the Sydney Students when they graduate here at the end of the year.”

Enrolments for the winter quarter starting on 6 July are now open. Find out all about that here.