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Sort By: [Date] [Major] [Rating] Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Average This review is only for people majoring in Fine Arts. First off, if you plan on being a Fine Arts major, understand that this school is almost completely based on Concept and not on any type of technique or skill building. For example, if you're a painting major, you will be given little if any instruction on any actual painting or drawing techniques. Concept and the "artistic significance" are all that matter. Because of this, most painting majors stop painting at all by the their Senior Thesis, doing installation work instead, since if their not gonna teach you how to paint, how can you paint? And yet, professors have no problem criticizing your drawing or painting skills, but offer no suggestions on how to improve. Or, they tell you to take drawing classes elsewhere to acquire these skills. Stupid, isn't it? For the most part, the faculty does not have these skills themselves to begin with. Same goes for printmaking, where I am sad to report that none of the faculty knows how to draw. And yet both of these majors have a long heritage of drawing?...Doesn't make any sense to me. This school celebrates concept over technique in every area. Don't expect to come here and learn to paint, draw, sculpt or whatever, cause you will be extremely disappointed. You end up writing tons of artist statements, spending hours at hum drum critiques, and giving presentations on your art, but spend little to no time learning how to actually CREATE art. So, basically, if you want to be a Conceptual Artist, then you will enjoy this school. Think Tracey Emin, Damien Hurst. But if you want to be an actual proficient painter/sculptor/printmaker, go somewhere else!! This school does not teach skill building!! Preparedness: C, Reputation: C Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private) Jul 09 2012 Alumnus Male -- Class 2000   Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=88301&uid=3223'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save Art & Design Department  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Bright You get a large mix of people: dancers, artists, musicians, actors, there's a great variety. It can be frustrating for art students in the Foundation year because there are certain classes that may not necessarily apply to your major. But overall the classes do help you gain the basics to help you in the years to come. Surrounding City: A+, Extracurricular Activities: C+ Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private)  More →  Apr 07 2011 1st Year Female -- Class 2014    Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=76108&uid=3223'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save Art & Design Department  Major Salary, Salary Trend, Satisfaction, Unemployment Super Brilliant I spent a solid four years at UArts and changed through three different majors. This was not because of my own indecisiveness, but instead is a testament of the poor quality of many of the "majors" at the school. I began as a Fine Arts major and was subsequently put through "foundation" which is basically an entire year wherein you waste your time so that everyone can be "on the same page". Foundation year is nothing but meaningless busywork that is neither technically nor intellectually challenging. You do things that most students who go to art school already know how to do (i.e. "training" your hand to draw straight lines (I kid you not) over and over again, painting in color wheels and making square inch grayscales, cutting out pieces of expensive drawing paper to make "shapes" which you then use to do contour drawings of (just the outside shape)). On top of this meaningless drivel, half of the Foundation floor is filled with poor film students who are for some reason forced to take part in something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with their major (honestly, why does a "writing for film/television" major need to know how to make contour drawings?!) which ends up dragging out the class time and progress because these unfortunate film students are trying to do something they're not good at/have no desire to actually DO. And this is just freshman year, mind you. I then transferred to the Theater Design/Technology department, which was wonderful (partially because of the extremely small class size (it was a new major at the time and there was a total of 13 people in the whole of the major)). Nick Embree is a fabulous professional, if a little bit hesitant in his teaching. This major was fun and engaging and only partially filled with meaningless work (which include finding photos in magazines which execute "good design", really? what are we, 10 years old?). The problem with the Theater Tech major lies in their unrealistic expectations of their students. Students must take both a Costume class (which consists of sewing together props for the school's own productions and taking orders from a somewhat bitchy woman who expects everyone to know how to sew extensively) and the Shop class, where you physically build the sets. These would be exciting and fun classes to take were they treated like actual classes. Instead, they're treated like internships. You're expected and even required to work at these places on Saturdays, Sundays, and even after school classes/early mornings before class. If you commute, there is no hope of ever being able to complete these classes. If you have a minor, or even try to take more than the absolute minimum of liberal arts classes (or, likewise, want to actually pass your classes), it's impossible. Or at least, extremely difficult. As someone with an academic scholarship to upkeep, the time spent building sets (which is not, by the way, the concentration of major which I wanted) resulted in a financial and emotional strain. I then transferred back to the College of Art and Design after realizing that I missed doing actual artwork and didn't want to sell my soul to pay for extra commute money. I went into the Illustration Department because I was told that they "actually teach you how to draw". Which they didn't. In Illustration, you take an anatomy class with one of the hardest screws to ever walk those halls: Phyllis. In retrospect, she's actually my favorite professor. She's hard as nails, has ridiculous expectations, has ZERO bedside manner when it comes to critiques and requires that you spend an arm and a leg for supplies you will probably never use again (the woman requires that you do your drawing homework on hot-press Arches watercolor paper. WATERCOLOR PAPER. Which will run you about $5.60 a sheet and a sheet will get you two nights of homework. You have homework every day you have class which is twice a week. Do the math). Phyllis will expect you to do double the amount of class time for homework. So a 6-hour class like her anatomy class will mean you have 12 hours of homework. And it's not 12 hours for some indigent either, it's 12 hours of copying anatomy exactly from an expensive textbook and having to know a ridiculous amount of anatomical terms, functions, and ratios. I learned a lot in her class, a lot more than any other class I took, but I worked my ass off to learn it and struggled in my other classes as a result. I transferred to the Painting Department lastly (due mostly because the illustration faculty found my work to not be "stylized" enough and I was basically told that my realistic, antiquity-inspired style had no market. lovely). The Painting floor is the biggest sack of bullshit ever. The kids on that floor are nothing but self-indulgent, elitists who do not possess a shred of technical talent or skill but instead feel compelled to bloat their artwork with lofty expressions of "intellectualism" which results in poorly constructed "artwork" so soaked in pretentiousness it's enough to make you gag. They are gossips without an iota respect and lack the intelligence or sophistication to actually make their work into anything even remotely resembling the Masters they claim to draw inspiration from. The faculty on this floor is even worse. It was common for one of my professors to make lewd remarks about my looks and then giggle while staring at me. My color studies teacher was a hack: she'd praise a piece which was completed the night before in a matter of minutes and then scorn someone who had worked for days. She had favorites, clearly, and was prone to days of what seemed like hormonal imbalance and irritability which she took out on her students. The worst person on the painting floor is, however, Stuart Elster. This is a man who has grown fat on his pretentiousness. There are truly no words to describe the pompousness and inflated sense of superiority that this man possesses. His syllabus reads like a parody of everything snooty art-snobs are supposed to be (if I still had it, I would scan and upload it somewhere. It really is a hysterical portrait of a man who needs to lay off the thesaurus and pull his head from his ass). He frequently uses words like, "diaphanous" and "effluvium" to describe artwork during critiques. He also has an amazing ability to turn a critique into the complete slaughter of an individual's self-esteem. He responds favourably to artwork like, a rock sitting on a three-legged stool (which belongs to the University and randomly floats around the painting floor), while staring blankly at beautifully painted pieces before turning and saying something along the lines of, "stop wasting my time". The school is designed to get you to spend as much money as possible while teaching you little to nothing. There are very few after school activities or clubs. The fellow students are nice enough, but most of them seem to be lacking a few brain cells. I mean, this IS an institution for higher educational, right? Instead, the school is filled with motivationally-challenged potheads who only do half of the assignments and are not nearly as intellectually edgy (and no, smoking outside the doors to every campus building with a gauge in your ear and a septum piercing does not qualify as edgy or stimulating. Tattoos are not indicative of creativity or genius) as young people attending an art school should be. The professors can be unusually cruel, even for someone with a lot of confidence, and can easily break the spirit of someone with a sensitive soul (which, by all means, should be everyone there. It's an art school, artists are renowned for being sensitive. That's why we MAKE ART, because we are SENSITIVE to things other people ARE NOT). The only good thing about UArts is the city: Philadelphia is amazing and I feel privileged to have spent four years living there (even if I didn't graduate). Collaboration/Competitive: A+, Useful Schoolwork: F Have a Question? Your Response/Question:     To be informed when someone replies to your comment. (private)  More →  Dec 16 2010 4th Year Female -- Class 2010    Forward  Blog it! Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account: Just copy and paste! <script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=73789&uid=3223'></script> <a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a> Rate this comment: Useless (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Helpful       Save  Prev    Select Page:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7 ... 11    Next

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