All of the friends I made here, every single one, are leaving after one semester and so am I. Ringling may have once been a great school but it is no longer.
Last year they changed the curriculum to make it even more challenging and segregated. They put freshmen families into place, which means you are stuck with the same group of people in every class all year. Like middle school. How is this a college experience? What makes this especially terrible is that peers in the media arts- that is students in animation, game art and design, and illustration, are especially egotistical and downright nasty. They will befriend you dependent on whether you are already amazing at drawing or not. But didn't we come here to learn to draw? A good friend of mine here left with good grades before the semester was up because she couldn't stand all the fake people who befriended her just because of her art. Credits you earn here won't transfer by the way, so don't stick it out all semester if you're as miserable as we were.
Ringling is like purgatory. Or worse, it's like hell. There are no good clubs or activities; in fact, the main club here is Christian Club. At an art college? You are also surrounded by a ghetto. On weekends, this campus is pretty much a dead zone or wasteland. My friends and I had to resort to drinking Robitussin on the weekends because without a car, there is absolutely NOTHING else to do except for kill yourself. Seriously. No parties, nightlife, or events going on that aren't academic related. Every store and restaurant located in the ghetto closes at 10:00 PM. As if you could even make it to any of them by foot without getting killed.
The dorms here are nice but not well maintained, at least not in Goldstein North Hall. A facilities employee came in to fix my air conditioner that was leaking, making a funny noise, and not cooling the room whatsoever. I complained to him that it was getting hot in there and becoming hard to breathe, but he would only fix the leak because a wrench icon had not appeared on the controls. Two days later, a wrench icon appeared and the room now smells of mold and mildew. I have complained many times about this and sent many facilities requests, but they have yet to do anything about it. I can not sleep in that room because it is hazardous to my health.
Another thing hazardous to my health here is the food, which lacks nutrients of any kind. You only have three options on campus: Hammond Commons, the Brickman Cafe, and the Outtakes Cafe. Hammonds will make you fat very quickly. The Brickman Cafe actually has pretty good soups and sandwiches, but in very small portions that won't fill you up. The Outtakes Cafe is just junkfood with prices that are nothing short of scandalous. If you do insist on going to this godforsaken place, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT waste your money on the meal plan. It is only good for three meals a day at specific times with no rollover credit. How's that for a scam?
Don't even get me started on the isolation. Ringling purposely isolates everyone with their extreme security system. "Fobs" are used to get to each individual floor in Goldstein, and each hall. This means even the long and short halls are separated on each floor! Forget having friends in other dormitories altogether because your "fob" won't get you in.
In short, Ringling was the worst decision I have ever made in my entire life, and a big fat waste of precious life time and money. It was like a four month acid trip gone horribly, horribly, wrong, in which I lost all contact with reality. I'm even tempted to say high school was better but alas, I will not.
Below I will list the types of people who should attend Ringling:
If you are the type of person who cares only about curriculum and not college experience, or even having any friends, choose Ringling.
If you are already fantastic at drawing and would like to have fake friends, choose Ringling.
If you are so full of yourself that you think your college will make you famous, choose Ringling.
If your idea of a party is watching a Dreamworks or Pixar film, choose Ringling.
If you like anime (a lot) choose Ringling.
If you consider yourself a member of the furry or brony community, choose Ringling.
If you want to dye your hair to be unique and different but are too afraid to dye more than two strands of it, choose Ringling.
If you are a christian, choose Ringling.
If you want to lose all contact with the outside world and even other majors, choose Ringling.
If you want to live a stressful, miserable life and never acquire a family, choose Ringling.
If you don't care about having a love life whatsoever, choose Ringling.
If you want to have no life at all, choose Ringling.
If you already have years of experience in animation, can be the best in your class, and want to be a Pixar animator, choose Ringling.
If you are a commuter, choose Ringling.
If you do not fall into ALL of these categories than please, for the love of god, DO NOT CHOOSE RINGLING! You will end up wasting 40k a year to be locked up in a beautiful looking jail.
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