What a waste of lifetime and money. This money hungry prison simply uses the students talents to get their accreditation up and to make money off them. I could have learned more about film in 2 weeks watching youtube videos then the 1 semester i was here at ringling. No student should pay $200,000 for a 4 year school, the students that go here are blind to that either because they are rich or just think they will leave the small ghetto school and get hired by a production company. There isn't many successful alumni here, most are realizing the school was a complete joke. There isn't much variety of personalities here, mostly stuck up, overweight, scary, dweeby, or oddly too nice. I could n't complain enough about this school, i had more fun in 6th grade then at ringling. The school is a wasteland on the weekends and the parties are just awful. If you can even find one that is decent. There is crackheads walking through here all the time because the school isn't even in the nice part of sarasota. The food is fattening and disgusting. I'd rather eat cardboard with ranch. Minus brickman but they don't give you any damn food. The kids who come here obviously went to a boring high school where they don't understand how to have fun on the weekends. The teachers give you bullshit homework most of the time. I didn't learn a damn thing the first semester literally. I had all a's and b's though. I was in keating, which was just about as creepy as an abandoned jail at night. The fact that i had to walk all the way down the hall for running water was absurd. Even if you have a car, good luck finding other people to go to the beach with, none of the girls i met enjoyed it? The first semester i was highly jelly of all my former high school grads who were attending normal universities. i saw instagrams of them meeting good looking guys, at fun parties, going to dances and football games, and here I am getting convinced to watch anime with a guy. There is a reason there is only a 1000 kids here, I really hope the dropout rate increases so kids don't waste their young lives here. Looking for a husband or wife? You won't find one here. They have a facebook crush page, which I find hilarious. Every post on the page is like "i'm too shy to talk to you, but I hope you talk to me." Like wtf? Go to any real colleges crush page and compare it to ringlings. I've seen the goofiest clothes ever here, girls with giant bunny ears casually walking around, guys with halloween costumes on every day, girls who dress as if they are 65 years old, and guys who look like they are from an anime movie. The school is only worth $5000 a year if that. I feel like this school is more of a safe haven for outcasts who avoid the real world so they can do projects and watch anime all the time. All the hot guys dropped out the first semester. So good luck with that girls. There were some decent well rounded people here, though many of the ones I met dropped out. I have nothing nice to say about my experience here besides the weather. Oh yeah. The teachers are artists, not teachers. They grade your work based off their opinions. Please do not go here i beg you. Save the money and go to a real school with real people.

1st Year Female -- Class 2017

I thought going here I bought into everything they advertise on their website. Little did i know Id have THE WORST experience ever. The Head of the Painting/Art Department Farber was so rude to me he said my painting looked like it had a penis. Never taught me ANYTHING. Just gave biased opinions on the work just like all the other teachers there. All they care about is the money. They dont care about the students at all. I got sick, I almost died too.I actually fell on campus the first day and from there I already exceeded my 2 or 3 day max for absences no teacher told me that so in every class my grade suffered for it. NO ONE HELPED ME AT ALL. Im transferring schools, they all told me to leave, no one cared i almost died and wouldnt help me with catching up on my work. THEY ALL GAVE ME Fs. Not one teacher said sorry you almost died here I can help you. All the students are stuck up too that I met. They all think theyre going to be famous which theyre not! SO expensive its over 50,000 to go here plus more money for supplies and food. If youre a nice talented artist who genuinely loves art DO NOT GO HERE. It'll ruin your love for it and have no faith in humanity. Im SO UPSET with this GOD AWFUL SCHOOL. The staff was THE WORST COLLEGE IVE EVER BEEN TO! DO NOT GO HERE YOULL WASTE YOUR TIME.MONEY, AND GENUINE LOVE OF ART.

Male -- Class 2000

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.

1st Year Female -- Class 2016