The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
After almost completing my first semester, I finally am getting around to typing this up:
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Art Institute...and more...
The Good:
-The school is connected to the museum, so you do not have to even go outside to get into the museum.
-As students you have access to the Print and Drawing room, which houses thousands of original drawings and prints from all different famous artists. You can schedule times to view a specific artwork, and they will prop it up for you to look at. Many of them are not even framed or have glass, so you can really get up close to them!
-The professors at times taking you through the museum or Print and Drawing room to teach you from the originals, not from books.
-Nearly every professor is an exhibiting artist at a gallery either in Chicago and or New York etc., so you can ask direct questions about how to get into galleries.
-The amount of varying classes offered every semester is overwhelming. You can really specialize in only what you want to take.
-There are no studio class requirements, meaning, you can take whatever studio classes you want to get your degree. This frees you to pick and choose, and experiment with all sorts of media you never would usually try.
-The school periodically brings in famous artists to give presentations.
-You have access to two separate amazing art libraries.
-There is no GPA grading system; all classes are pass/fail. This encourages actual learning, allowing you not to worry about exactly trying to meet requirements.
The Bad:
-There is no GPA grading system. This encourages procrastination and rationalization (ie: "I know I should do more sketches for this class, but is the professor going to really "fail" me because I did not do quite as much work as was recommended?").
-The classes meet only once a week...for six hours. That makes for a really long day, and also you then only see the professor once a week, furthering the gap between professor and student. Also, lecture classes are then three hours straight once a week, a very long time to take notes.
-There is a distance between some of the faculty and the students. Often times, I will receive only one or two constructive comments from a faculty member in a whole six hour class period. There have even been times when I have not received any the entire day.
-Everything is spread out between different buildings several blocks apart. So if you need to go to a registration appointment, you must go to such and such a building, on this street, up to floor #12.
-You have to show your ID or scan it every time you enter an Academic building.
-There is no campus telephone operator, making it very difficult to get a hold of a certain faculty member, or academic department, etc. by phone.
-The school is liberal...I mean REALLY liberal (ie: I am walking down the hall, and glance over at the student photography "work of the week" and see a large photo of a girl standing spread eagle on a bed with no pants or underwear on, chugging down a bottle of beer, while urinating down onto the camera. Does anybody really want to see that? Is that really art? The situation further complicates as I go back to class, and my drawing instructor proceeds to rant and rave about this particular photograph and how it would make a great T-shirt).
-The tuition is REALLY high (I mean like 50% more than Spring Arbor).
-They like to abbreviate certain words like critique to "crit" and oeuvre to "oeuv". I do not know why this irks me so much.
-It really is difficult to maneuver the trains and buses while carrying paintings, drawings, rolls of canvas etc. You also have to be able to carry everything (art supplies etc.) a great distance.
The Amusing:
-Most of the time at schools you can tell the art students by how different or weird they look...well here, almost everybody looks really weird. After seeing all of these students, I have come to the conclusion that art students in general are some of the scuzziest, dirty, run-down people I have met. Many of the students do not appear to shower more than once a week, and most people walk around covered in paint stains (clothes and body). Because everyone is so different or strange, they almost all look like people I would want to paint or draw, but since you have no idea who these people are, you can not just go up and ask them.
-Almost everybody smokes. I have one teacher who will even go outside during breaks and smoke with some of the students.
-Being an all art school, graffiti happens...a lot. People will draw something in the bathroom, and then about every week, the janitors will repaint the bathroom walls, and then students proceed to immediately draw something else.
-It is a very large school, and in the hallways there are literally hundreds of lockers, all with locks on them. Now, almost every class is during the same time period 9:00am-4:00pm, and so you would think that at 4:00pm there would be a mad rush of students in the hall around the lockers...it never happens!?! There is always only about 25-30 students or so (at most) walking around going to their lockers. Now, I am there four days a week, and I am beginning to become quite confused and bothered by this.
There is more, but that is a good taste for you now.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Art Institute...and more...
The Good:
-The school is connected to the museum, so you do not have to even go outside to get into the museum.
-As students you have access to the Print and Drawing room, which houses thousands of original drawings and prints from all different famous artists. You can schedule times to view a specific artwork, and they will prop it up for you to look at. Many of them are not even framed or have glass, so you can really get up close to them!
-The professors at times taking you through the museum or Print and Drawing room to teach you from the originals, not from books.
-Nearly every professor is an exhibiting artist at a gallery either in Chicago and or New York etc., so you can ask direct questions about how to get into galleries.
-The amount of varying classes offered every semester is overwhelming. You can really specialize in only what you want to take.
-There are no studio class requirements, meaning, you can take whatever studio classes you want to get your degree. This frees you to pick and choose, and experiment with all sorts of media you never would usually try.
-The school periodically brings in famous artists to give presentations.
-You have access to two separate amazing art libraries.
-There is no GPA grading system; all classes are pass/fail. This encourages actual learning, allowing you not to worry about exactly trying to meet requirements.
The Bad:
-There is no GPA grading system. This encourages procrastination and rationalization (ie: "I know I should do more sketches for this class, but is the professor going to really "fail" me because I did not do quite as much work as was recommended?").
-The classes meet only once a week...for six hours. That makes for a really long day, and also you then only see the professor once a week, furthering the gap between professor and student. Also, lecture classes are then three hours straight once a week, a very long time to take notes.
-There is a distance between some of the faculty and the students. Often times, I will receive only one or two constructive comments from a faculty member in a whole six hour class period. There have even been times when I have not received any the entire day.
-Everything is spread out between different buildings several blocks apart. So if you need to go to a registration appointment, you must go to such and such a building, on this street, up to floor #12.
-You have to show your ID or scan it every time you enter an Academic building.
-There is no campus telephone operator, making it very difficult to get a hold of a certain faculty member, or academic department, etc. by phone.
-The school is liberal...I mean REALLY liberal (ie: I am walking down the hall, and glance over at the student photography "work of the week" and see a large photo of a girl standing spread eagle on a bed with no pants or underwear on, chugging down a bottle of beer, while urinating down onto the camera. Does anybody really want to see that? Is that really art? The situation further complicates as I go back to class, and my drawing instructor proceeds to rant and rave about this particular photograph and how it would make a great T-shirt).
-The tuition is REALLY high (I mean like 50% more than Spring Arbor).
-They like to abbreviate certain words like critique to "crit" and oeuvre to "oeuv". I do not know why this irks me so much.
-It really is difficult to maneuver the trains and buses while carrying paintings, drawings, rolls of canvas etc. You also have to be able to carry everything (art supplies etc.) a great distance.
The Amusing:
-Most of the time at schools you can tell the art students by how different or weird they look...well here, almost everybody looks really weird. After seeing all of these students, I have come to the conclusion that art students in general are some of the scuzziest, dirty, run-down people I have met. Many of the students do not appear to shower more than once a week, and most people walk around covered in paint stains (clothes and body). Because everyone is so different or strange, they almost all look like people I would want to paint or draw, but since you have no idea who these people are, you can not just go up and ask them.
-Almost everybody smokes. I have one teacher who will even go outside during breaks and smoke with some of the students.
-Being an all art school, graffiti happens...a lot. People will draw something in the bathroom, and then about every week, the janitors will repaint the bathroom walls, and then students proceed to immediately draw something else.
-It is a very large school, and in the hallways there are literally hundreds of lockers, all with locks on them. Now, almost every class is during the same time period 9:00am-4:00pm, and so you would think that at 4:00pm there would be a mad rush of students in the hall around the lockers...it never happens!?! There is always only about 25-30 students or so (at most) walking around going to their lockers. Now, I am there four days a week, and I am beginning to become quite confused and bothered by this.
There is more, but that is a good taste for you now.