The Columbus College of Art and Design

Date: Mar 11 2010
Major: Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
I will be graduating from CCAD this spring with a BFA in fine arts-sculpture…and I cannot wait to be done with the place.

CCAD seemed alright at first- they hand out good scholarships to incoming high schoolers native to the area and offer extra scholarships if needed. I was lucky enough to get a very good scholarship and win another scholarship they offered but was only allowed to accept one. They neglected to tell me this before I went through several interviews and portfolio reviews to win the second scholarship- which ended up going to the second-place winner.

The freshman year was grueling (but the curriculum is changing) and I spent many sleepless nights on tedious projects with strict guidelines and quick deadlines. Teachers during this year seemed to choose favorites quickly and if you weren't one, you didn't get nearly enough attention. It was also this year that I noticed how bad the buildings on campus were. One building that houses mainly the painting and figure drawing classes is falling apart but yearly covered with a new coat of paint. Holes in the floors peer down into the classrooms below and the corners and edges of doors leak in Ohio's lovely rain and snow. The roof is also constantly leaking and flooding some parts of the uneven floors.

The sculpture lab where I spend most of my time is no exception. Just this past week some heavy rains came through the roof and down one corner of the senior studios like a small waterfall. This ended up flooding the studios with a nice later of stagnant water that sat for 3 days before someone was able to pump it out (the smell of stagnant water is wonderful!). On the topic of studios, CCAD is horribly short of space for seniors. Only a small portion of seniors get studio spaces after filling out forms and adding a name to the long waiting lists. Every once in a while though I will stumble upon a sophomore who has a senior studio (funny how that works…) by being close to a teacher.

One thing people complain about is the lack of job placement through CCAD, and I really have to agree. A lot of schools work hard to set students up with internships or job opportunities, but CCAD does not go out of its way. The career services department has a website set up with random art-based jobs that students can apply for, but I wouldn't trust most of them to be legit or worth the fight to get. If you want an internship, you have to go to the site, hunt an opportunity down and apply for it. If you get it you then have to work your internship around school since they won't count them towards class experience.

A big problem that does reflect itself in career services and student services is the lack of communication. Time after time I have been personally told one thing by my advisor, only to be surprised later and hear the complete opposite from another. Advising sessions for class scheduling seem like they would help you stay on course to your programs requirements, but it never happens that way. The only students who end up having their scheduling go smoothly are the ones who track their courses non-stop on their own and never go to an advisor- well, only to fix a mistake that the office workers have made. TRansfer students from other schools and student looking to take some classes at nearby Columbus State BEWARE- the credit transfer process through CCAD is outrageous and confusing and changes rules from one person to the next.

I'm finally almost done with the place and, looking back, wish that I would have switched schools early on when I still had the chance.