The State University of New York Purchase College

Date: Nov 08 2019
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
Suny Purchase was a perfect encapsulation of just how hollow state-funded schools have become. It couldn't have been further from a nurturing environment.

The vast majority of the student body is a closed-minded echo chamber that vilifies anyone with a dissenting opinion. Nothing is really open for discussion, despite the motto of the school "Think Wide Open." Most of the professors will teach you an incredibly biased version of their subject, claiming that their personal tastes are the standard in the industry and grade you based on how much they like your work personally. All my graphic design classes were like this, with the Swiss Punk style being the standard and all deviations being punished. I branched out and took installation art with Chris Robbins and he subsequently used the entire class as an opportunity to make preach about contemporary social issues that he liked rather than teaching us about art. He even graded us on how much we incorporated said social themes, which was corrupt in a class about craftsmanship. In frustration, I literally filled a room with random garbage and called it my "final project." They all raved about it as being an amazing piece of modern art. I got an A and a little piece of me died inside.

I took several oil painting classes and was surprised to find that not a single painting teacher could help me with surrealism (which I was already somewhat accomplished in from years of study). They couldn't even critique it constructively! They all painted in the style of abstract impressionism and encouraged their students to do the same. Not that there is anything wrong with that inherently, but the lack of diversity was astounding and it was obvious that they were encouraging this quick style of painting to the students because anything more disciplined would make them drop out. It was very discouraging.

I switched to a newly formed art/science fusion major towards the end of my stay there in order to take some useful classes that I wasn't allowed to take in my curriculum: accounting for artists, arts management, anatomy, and biology. You'd think those would be required for art majors, but they aren't. This new major called BSVA had no organization whatsoever and the lone faculty member assigned to the department was so inept that she told me to store my senior project in another departments storage facility where it was destroyed by a different faculty member. Not intentionally, but accidentally. I never got any compensation for the thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours I put into that project. I was also forced into homelessness for a semester due to the college screwing up my paperwork. I was only able to attend school on financial aid and was not able to get any for the entirety of one semester due to an error on the schools part, and I was destitute. During a different semester we had loud construction on the wall of our dorm room every day for months on end, waking us all up at 6-7AM. It affected everyone's grades in my suite because no one was able to get any rest after late nights of study. We complained many times and no action was taken.

I would have sued the school over all all the things mentioned in the last paragraph if I had the money to hire a lawyer, but all I can do is write this review. It's been 4 years since I left and I still have a very bitter taste in my mouth from the experience.

Please don't enroll if you are an artist or designer of any kind.