Frequently Asked Questions About CCA Programs

CCA’s academic standards are widely considered to be the highest the country. For this reason, our students are highly respected not only in the United States but world-wide.

Because of the clarity, focus and excellence of CCA’s educational process, CCA’s graduates are commonly regarded as the most successful practitioners in the country.

CCA offers the most extensive herbal training in the country. Our program is one of the few in the United States where residents and interns have the opportunity to design each and every medicine they prescribe to their patients, gain hands-on experience making medicines, and participate in a special herbal apprenticeship program taking herbs from seed to medicine.

While most internships at other schools include observing a teacher seeing patients or performing consultations in groups or on other students, CCA’s professional internship program includes both observation and working directly with real patients. CCA is also, to our knowledge, the only school in the country in which CAS and MAS interns are paid a stipend while they are in school seeing patients. This helps build self-esteem and confidence as students go into practice.

The program at CCA has been refined over 25+ years. Every facet of CCA’s training program is designed to coordinate a student’s learning experience. Rather than provide students with seminar teachers who do not coordinate with each other, CCA’s teaching staff is a completely integrated unit, meeting regularly, and working together to assure a cohesive learning experience.

Teachers at CCA are hand-picked by Dr. Halpern for their knowledge, their ability to communicate clearly, and their ability to teach in an organized manner. All teachers also go through special “teacher training” to assure competency in the classroom. Each teacher has also developed important insights into the knowledge and brings these insights into the learning experience of the student. Perhaps most importantly, our faculty is living the principles of Ayurveda every day.

Dr. Marc Halpern was instrumental in developing the currently accepted national guidelines for ayurvedic practitioner education and is leading the effort to raise those standards nationwide. Your education at CCA prepares you for the future of Ayurveda in the United States.

In most States, formal approval is necessary to run a professional Ayurvedic training program. Sadly, many schools try to avoid State approval by either operating illegally or by forming religious institutions to get around the rules. California College of Ayurveda offers State-Approved programs meaning that our school operates legally, professionally (to State standards) and our school is financially stable.

Students who graduate from the California College of Ayurveda have opportunities to participate in training programs and internships in India. CCA has a relationship with several Ayurvedic doctors and hospitals in India where interns can participate in apprenticeships.

CCA is committed to helping students understand the complete science of Ayurveda as it was articulated thousands of years ago by the ancient teachers. This knowledge is contained in three major and three minor texts of Ayurveda written between 1500 B.C. and 1500 A.D. The curriculum at CCA helps to bring this ancient wisdom to students in a modern and easily understandable format.

The practice of Ayurveda has not been determined to be illegal in any of the 50 states. In addition, some states like California have passed health freedom laws that formally legalize the practice of alternative medicine including Ayurveda. CCA has graduates practicing in most of the 50 states and no graduate to our knowledge, has ever had their right to practice questioned.