I have a niece who has been attending a special art college but now cannot afford it.
My advice to her is just go for an art degree at her local university.
Is this good advice?
I mean going back to my years in college their was a big art department and I assume, the students were getting good training. But that was just ONE department in a huge university of lots of other majors.
Does an art student get just a good education at a state school than a specialized art school?
My WAG is that, if you go to art school, you just study art. If you go to a “regular” college or university and major in art, you get a general education with a special emphasis in art (similar to if you had majored in English or chemistry or music or whatever). A bachelor’s degree, in whatever major, probably opens more doors than having studied at art school.
But this is based on no actual knowledge of how “art school” works.
It seems like this would be the difference between film school and majoring in film. Do you want to learn the theory behind film with a little hands on experience or do you want the ability and experience to actually direct or film something upon graduation.
We have an art school in Milwaukee (MIAD), I’ve seen some things come out of that school that I can’t imagine coming out of our local universities (ie UW-Milwaukee).
Same here.
If she wants to make a living doing art, the main thing she needs are 1. contacts 2. business skills, and 3. a megaton of hustle. School provides, hopefully, the first one.
Chops are farther down the list. All the successful artists I know have a side business and a spouse with a good steady income.
If she chooses a college with a nationally-known art department (example: UC Davis, otherwise known as an ag school) then probably it will be a similar experience. Otherwise it might be frustrating. I suggest if she goes to a general school that she do a minor in business administration. The main reason to get a degree in art would be to teach it, something many artist do.
Visual art, unless it is a collaborative one such as film, is almost entirely something you do in a room by yourself. You can do that anywhere. One of my more impoverished friends went to the Art Institute of San Francisco for two years and eventually realized that the only reason he was there was for the free studio space, which was not worth the price.
If she needs the school to have the discipline to keep working at her art, she will never be an artist.
There are a gazillion jobs within the creative industries that don’t involve being a starving artist. Designer, illustrator, animator, art director in advertising, to name just a handful off the top of my head.
Full disclosure, I’m a designer, not from the US. But in my experience art schools/courses vary wildly in quality. The answer to your question isn’t ‘art school or art degree’, it’s how revered is the individual course or college she wants to attend.
I’ve attended two art schools and taken art classes at a major university and also at a community college.
Differences: art school classes are taught by artists. They can be terrible, because all those people want to do is get paid so they can go do their own art. They sometimes have zero idea how to teach anything.
A good general university with a sincere art department will be fairly rigorous in the oversight of teaching quality. I had better teachers at the university. At least they had lesson plans, regular critiques, assignments.
Community college, attracting a lot of older non-artists, was totally basic-skills-oriented. How to draw a glass of water. I took a couple classes and was advised to go to art school.
Excellent post. Can add that if she has any idea of what she wants to ultimately do, she should pick a school with a reputation in that particular specialty, like animation, graphic design, etc. Doesn’t have to be an art school for that.
When my son decided he wanted to go into music (I mean seriously into music) we went through the whole gamut of music schools, vs. private, vs. public universities. I was particularly concerned about the worth of a B.F.A. vs B.A. degree. I’m guessing other fine arts programs work similarly.
A lot of what we found can be described as “doing something with music,” “being a musician,” and “being seriously in the music industry.” One state school we visited, for example, seemed to be totally focused teaching students how to be music teachers and high school band directors. Many of the “being a musician” programs are of the conservatory model - you actually compete against your peers, and students have to keep succeeding in competitions to advance to the next level.
By contrast, the arts school my son finally decided on not only taught music performance, but also theory, composing and production. They also had courses in, for lack of a better term, “arts management and business.” I think my son probably graduated fully capable of anything from operating a recording studio to conducting and running a symphony orchestra.
What the OP’s niece needs to do is decide what she wants to do when she graduates. There are community colleges with extremely good programs in graphic design and production, which would equip her to go into most commercial communication fields. If she loves art but doesn’t plan to make a living at it, there are many schools with art programs that will teach her everything she needs to know about color, shading, perspective, type of medium, etc., while letting her get a degree in something more marketable.
Thanks for the great inputs.
Is cost a factor?
We used to take about 20 design majors on a field trip to Milwaukee during MIAD’s portfolio show. The work was indeed awesome, but when one of the students asked about tuition, the group gasped. It was over 10 times what they were paying. In the debriefing later they said they were getting a similar education for a bargain price.
Oh, by the way, “similar” was indeed “awesome”.
Our students were at a tech school with an exemplary Graphic Design program, where (and here’s what you should check on) ALL the teachers were working professionals. Web Designers, Illustrators, all flavors of Designers (Print, Video, Web UI/UX, Motion Graphics, Environmental, Social Media, Digital…).
And since the whole point of the program was getting them jobs, those working designers knew what skills they needed, and knew firms who needed entry-level designers. So that’s my bias. Partly due to the fact that I was a designer/illustrator for forty years, and it was such a blast.
In the UK, anyone wanting to study a creative subject at degree level first takes a one year ‘foundation course’ in art and design - a really valuable year when you try modules in lots of different creative areas - fine art, sculpture, industrial design, graphic design, textile design, fashion, photography, you name it. Is there anything like that in the US?
It really helps students decide what subject they are actually really interested in/good at - stuff they probably didn’t cover properly at school. Lots of students start the year thinking they want to be one thing (eg a fine artist) and end the year starting a degree in product design or whatever. I thought I wanted to be an illustrator but actually found graphic design was where my talents and interest lay.
All I knew on leaving school was that art was my favourite subject - I had no idea there were so many career avenues it could take me.
It saves a lot of wasted time and expense.
I had a friend in college who was an incredible artist. He was a “dual major” fulfilling the requirements for a BS in Biology and a BA in Art. But it turns out that was not possible, his advisor had fucked up big time. He liked science and was thinking about doing medical illustrating.
I helped him (barely) pass Organic Chemistry. He was the first undergrad art student to have his own show. He busted his ass for four years only to discover that he wasn’t getting two degrees, just a major and a minor, and most of his science courses weren’t necessary for that.
When his advisor found out what had happened, she quit and disappeared.
One great thing about the art/design field is that, with few exceptions, NO ONE cares what your degree is in, or even if you have one.
Yes, I have a cite: me. As an Art Director (later a Creative Director), I hired a lot of entry-level designers. Worked with a guy who had an art degree, but also a PhD in BritLit, a couple of BAs in unrelated fields, and a couple of AAs (Assoc. of Art, 2 yr degree). Our best designer had a high school GED.
In the advertising and design studios I worked for, we always said we’re selfish, we care what you can DO for us, not what piece of paper you’ve got in your back pocket.
Me? I’ve got a BS in Biology. But even when I was planning to go to med school, I had a file labeled “Next Career”, where I’d throw anything I thought was well-designed.