To be honest, the school wasn't SO bad. I'm was a ...

To be honest, the school wasn't SO bad. I'm was a commuter so I can't anything of how their dorm was like. Often, the atmosphere at the college felt really quiet. Too quiet almost. The hallways always felt empty, and the campus was huge but I hardly saw any people. It felt like no activity was going on. It was honestly kind of depressing.

I felt like everything on campus was oddly spaced apart. If you were often in the Social Sciences building, you could easily go to the cafeteria/the Hub, sure. If you were in the Visual Arts building, you'd have a 10 minute walk across campus to get food. If you're lucky, you're not carrying a lot of stuff and it's not a particularly cold/windy day.

Some of the studio classes felt like they could go on forever. While I did more work in my freshman year IN CLASS, in Sophomore year, it became more and more talk and critique and less work actually in class. I felt like they weren't even teaching at this point or helping, and everything relied on critique. Critique is important, but we had 3 hours of mostly talk and not all the critique seemed helpful or even relevant. I think it would've been better to work in class and actually get some help from the teacher rather than get critique on the due date. Most of the critiques also felt like you had to be friends with your classmates for them to even say anything. Classes were boring. I honestly only learned ever from like one teacher.

The studios aren't so clean. The floor, I noticed, was often dusty, and old paint was encrusted on a lot of the tables and easels. Most notably, the studio was cold 90% of the time, and it was worse in the winter.

Some of the teachers were okay, but some were discouraging. I had a teacher tell me that if I wanted to pursue a career in art, that I'm "better off going to law school and being a lawyer." I don't expect praise and worship from an art school, but I don't think that's any of a teacher's business. A career in art (and not just painting, drawing, etc. Any art) can be made, and it shouldn't be looked down upon. Someone did interior design on your home, someone wrote that book you love, and someone drew that logo of your favorite brand. Some of the teachers also really tried to push their beliefs on you as if only fact.

One teacher kept you from saying "like" or "cool" in sentences, when you need to process your thoughts. People do not talk the way we write.

And honestly I agree with a bunch of other reviews. They do take quirkiness to an extreme to the point where I wanted to go "Calm down." It felt like there was a need to prove just how weird and different you were. Just - no.

As for registration - their website kind of sucked. Figuring out registration sucked as well. I don't know WHY you have to meet with your advisor in person to approve your schedule and then give you an access code to go forth with the registration. Not everyone is on campus to stay for a meeting at 5 pm, because some people are commuters.
Why not just do this through email?
Most of the time, it's just your advisor going "Yup! There's these classes too but yup!"

It felt like such a waste of time.

This school all together made me feel depressed, art repressed, and uninspired.

"Think Wide Open," felt more like "Think Like Us."

If your art wasn't abstract, they did not like it. This isn't even if you draw cartoons and manga for example.

One student painted BEAUTIFUL artwork. He clearly had a good sense of form, light, value, and color. But because his art was representative, he was shot down in a critique. They did not even consider that he had a good grasp of fundamentals.

That is not thinking wide open. That sounds like conforming to me.

On a more positive note, the college seemed relax. No one bothered you, and most of the other students seemed friendly enough. As a freshman, you had an upperclassman get to help you sort things out.

I eventually transferred from this school.