Student review [#99281] for Music Production and Sound Engineering
at Catalyst – Institute for Creative Arts and Technology

My experience with Catalyst having graduated from their BA in Creative Audio Production and Sound Engineering was truly remarkable:

Regarding their education, I really liked how their classes were structured; even though at first I thought that the lessons wouldn’t be thorough enough because we didn’t have many hours of class per week, it actually turned out to be the perfect balance between theoretical teaching and practical work in the studios.
Every semester we would have very diverse classes with challenging projects that forced us to push our creative limits.

We would get a limited amount of studio time every week (which I do wish was higher but everyone’s gotta eat!), and their variety of equipment and studio gear made it really exciting and easy to partake in all kinds of creative projects.
From a wide variety of microphones, to instruments, to drum machines and pedals, and they even have a small library of music, film and psychology books!

The studios in their facilities are very-well setup overall, although I did think that some of them needed better acoustic treatment and sound isolation. However, they have very good basic gear in every room (computer, audio interface, speakers and midi keyboard) and a few top-tier studios with incredible mixing consoles, recording gear and mastering speakers.

Aside from the educational aspect, I think what I appreciated the most about my experience at Catalyst was the great sense of community there is and all the amazing people I met through my programme. The school made it so easy to network, both inside and outside of their facilities, and thanks to the amount of workshops, talks and events they are constantly organising, it was effortless to connect to other artists from all disciplines.
The people I met in Berlin through and thanks to Catalyst definitely made it all worth it.

On another note, however, I do wish the school provided a little more help towards the end of the degree when you’re stepping into work life. It would have been fantastic if they gave us the opportunity to enrol in a short internship or apprenticeship, or even just referred us to possible mentors.

Either way, my opinion is the same. Moving to Berlin to study at Catalyst was one of the most exciting things I have ever done, and everything I learnt plus all the people I met, made the experience 100% worth it.