By Carlos Serrano

It began not with a bang, but with a whisper. One seemingly innocent Twitter post thanking SCAD for a free download of some sort, followed by another one asking how to actually download the program. Pretty soon it seemed everyone had heard the news. SCAD was offering a free download of Adobe CS6 for all current students, as well as incoming freshmen and transfer students.

Photography major Jessicla Clickner is one such student. “I was ecstatic when I got the email about the CS6 download.” She says, “I had almost paid the $250 student rate to get Photoshop alone.”

It’s not just about saving money of course. The opportunity to use CS6 should help students be better prepared for schoolwork, and hopefully make things easier for them as well.

As with most new things, there were a few hiccups. Freshmen had to wait until the start of the new school year to receive their download code, which caused some confusion among the newest students. There was also the unfortunate reality of slowdowns and downed websites.

Of course, that was all to be expected, after all, with so many students vying for the same link, it would have been naive to think there would be no bumps. Thankfully for everyone involved, things settled down, and students began to download CS6 in earnest, just in time for a fresh new quarter.

If you haven’t yet taken the time to download your free copy, yo should. It’s an easy process, made even easier by the fact that at this point in the quarter, you’ll have beaten the initial rush of students. Various SCAD-affiliated social media pages have already shared the steps to take in order to download the software, but because sharing is caring, you can also find them in this article:

To request your free copy of CS6, just log into MySCAD, hit up the Resources tab and click on SCAD Deals. If all goes well, you should be designing like a pro in no time flat.

Asked about what she thought of SCAD’s decision to offer this download, Clckner had this to add, “To get the free CS6 software was not something I was expecting, and this school continues to surprise me.”

With surprises like this one, it seems like everyone wins.