Learn by doing
We provide you with a safe space to dream big and build a life you love. Our groundbreaking programmes are built on project based learning. We use a progressive education model whilst complying with the rigorous requirements of a UK university.
Progressive education focuses on building your specialist creative skills alongside the real world, everyday skills that will continue to transform your daily life long after you have left Catalyst behind.
Our project-based curriculum provides key knowledge, tools and techniques through ‘hands on’ practice with your creative tools, experiential learning and self reflection whilst completing real world, creative industry projects. Learning through doing and collaboration with others is key to the Catalyst method.
Greatness is grown
Our organisational purpose is 'igniting creative greatness and accelerating personal growth'. Our belief that greatness is grown not born powers everything we do. We provide you with a learning and self development process that allows you to build your best self and maximise your own unique greatness.
We believe it is high time that educational institutions reinvented themselves and we plan to be part of that revolution. Too many institutions especially those in higher education are still following models of education that were built for a different and long gone world.
Although progressive education is hardly a new concept there is a growing recognition that it's time has come and many of the concepts which were put into place more than a century ago are far more relevant to contemporary 21st century life than those still being delivered within a traditional university education.
Unavoidably unique
Take the same qualification as your fellow Catalyst students but do it in a way which works for your interests, your goals, your personal approach to learning and your unique future.
Collaboration
Bathe in a dazzling array of different backgrounds, life experiences, approaches and cultural values. Only when we come together can we truly grow. We celebrate diversity in a real and grounded way.
Brain building
Build up that brain in our 'gym for the human mind'. Engage and develop serious problem solving and chewy critical thinking skills across a range of issues whilst building your understanding muscle. Get comfortable with taking action.
Play
Play is a crucial ingredient at Catalyst. In fact at times it can feel like a technological toy room. At Catalyst we tend to assume that the wider the smile, the harder the work going on and the deeper the exploration.
Deep thinking
Our education is organised around problems, projects, and questions. The point is not merely to challenge you but to invite you to think deeply about issues that matter and help you understand ideas from the inside out.
Building dreams and new futures
We take our work very seriously but with a playful lightness of being. In the words of W.B. Yeats we imagine that everything student would want to say this to us before agreeing to join us:-
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Build for success
Whatever your definition of success, there are a range of tools, skills, attributes and habits which significantly increase your chances of achieving that success. These skills and attributes are the building blocks that help turn a talented, hardworking human being into a genuinely successful one. Here are some examples:
- A well developed creative muscle
- Comfort with failure and vulnerability
- Building tenacity, grit and resilience
- Growing and developing an entrepreneurial approach
- Learning to lead people and projects
- Understanding the benefits of taking risk
- Enhancing your communication and collaborative skills
- Learning to innovate.
This learning is deeply embedded in the projects you complete for your course. Much of the time you may not be consciously aware you are in the process of developing these skills.
Your well being
What is artistic output, creative development and success without personal fulfilment and happiness? At Catalyst we believe that personal well being and happiness are essential to living a truly fulfilled life and we encourage our students to incorporate this into their own development.
This belief is woven into the structure of our course delivery. It’s a cornerstone and an important part of our DNA.
Student experience
At Catalyst, we’re constantly on the hunt to provide you with unique experiences within Berlin’s creative community. Running through the heart of all our programmes is the fostering of creative practitioners. That means supporting the development of your creative passions whilst focussing and positioning your professional trajectory.
Alongside your development as a creative practitioner we see it as important to support your development as a creative entrepreneur. In the contemporary freelance world that many of you will work in, there are few job roles that come with an interview and a CV. You have to be comfortable with getting yourself in the driving seat and making the world sit up and notice.
Connecting with the wider industry
An ever changing list includes networking opportunities, professional development, festival volunteering, running your own radio show and plenty more.
Volunteering for events is another opportunity for growth. In the past, we’ve arranged for our students to volunteer at Lollapalooza Festival, Berlin Festival, Mira Festival, Ableton Loop, Music Tech Fest, Sacred Ground Festival, Torstraßenfestival, Ry X concert at the Funkhaus and Konzerthaus, Cine-East Film Festival, Superbooth, and CTM.
A guiding hand
Who will ask you the difficult questions? Who will set you tasks that sound unachievable but that inspire you to stretch yourself in ways you didn’t know you were capable of? Who will provide you with insights into new ways of thinking?
Who can lead you to the things you don’t even know you don’t know? Who will provide you with praise at the right time? Who will be there as you pick yourself up out of the dirt after a spectacular failure to encourage you to be even more audacious with your next vision?
The Catalyst team will enable you to imagine, develop and build the best version of yourself providing you with all the necessary tools to grow your own greatness.