I couldn't care less about the social aspects of a university, so I really can't speak to that point if it's a deciding factor for you.Apart from that, this school feels more and more like a devastating waste of time and money with each passing semester. By far its worst feature has to be its administrative staff. You couldn't get a clear answer from them if your life depended on it. If you ask five of them the same question, you are getting five different answers telling you to do five different things, and none of them will even end up being right. I am constantly lied to about loan disbursement dates, class requirements, and even my status as a student. They can't even make up their minds as to whether I'm a sophomore or a junior. This is only if you go down there and talk to them in person, mind. If you send an email (or forty) or leave them several voice messages, you will never even get the courtesy of a response. It's as if the conditioned response for every problem presented to a member of the administration is an apathetic shrug, an "I don't know the answer and I don't care."
In addition, asinine campus policies take precedence over anything and everything else. You can be expelled for skateboarding in the wrong area, smoking on campus, or breaking any other absurd rule they can think up. Attendance is mandatory. Never mind if you're an adult with two jobs or a parent struggling to make ends meet through school, you are not mature enough to prioritize, so BSU does it for you. Work emergency? Sick child? Dead relative? Too bad; it's much more important that the professor's ego doesn't suffer from seeing an empty seat, and should you miss that class, your grade (which is only theoretically a representation of your academic prowess) will suffer for it.
Many professors are as impossible to get a hold of as the rest of the staff. Don't agree with your grade? There is positively nothing you can do about it, even if you can prove that the professor made a mistake. Grades seem incredibly arbitrary--especially as an art major. Why did this assignment get me an A and this one a B? Did you just decide you liked blue better than yellow?
Your core classes are nigh impossible to get into. I've been going to BSU for years as an Illustration major, and have only been able to take a handful of beginner art courses. I do not have more rights to art classes than non art majors. In my last illustration course, I was the ONLY illustration major there. Why is this acceptable?
This is likely a moot point, however, as most art courses here are worse than useless. Their teachings are antiquated and make no considerations for modern art jobs. There's little to no mention of cartoons, video games, movies, comic books, no real acknowledgement of art for entertainment's sake whatsoever. What do you get taught? Children's books and portrait painting, and the arrogant, hipster attitude that assumes art is produced for other artists, and you are taught "how to view it". Really, how is that helpful? In what world am I creating art purely for other artists (the only people who could "undertand" it) as opposed to, I don't know, my boss? My audience? Whoever is commissioning me for the very reason that they are NOT, themselves, an artist?
All in all, it honest to god seems that BSU is geared towards the lowest possible student success rate. It is run like a failing business--micromanaged to the point of being nonfunctional because they refuse to focus on their big picture problems. Low graduation rate? Students' fault. Maybe if we ban bikes or trans fats or something the idiots' grades will improve.
The biggest kick in the pants is that at the end of it all, if I somehow find a loophole that will allow me a graduate in the next three years, all I'll be left with is an art degree from Boise State. I have a nagging feeling that I will be laughed out of every job interview for the rest of my life.
Articles
