Kansas City Art Institute

Date: Oct 09 2011
Major: Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
After researching this school I was really excited about coming here because I was under the impression that it was a place where my creativity would flourish. This did not happen. I will be leaving after this fall because this place is simply not for genuine artists. I found the instructor in my major to be too strict and close minded toward my style of art and was trying to push their habits and style onto me. This is probably why the majority of student artwork there looks the same and has no originality. There are probably several students in that department that are real artists.

Being a private and expensive school, the majority of students there are snobs and are trying to chase a dream that will most likely cause them to wait tables and pay off debt for most of their lives. I only met a couple of people who were really down to earth.

Here's the thing, if you're confident in your ability as an artist and you understand your limits and goals, then you don't need to go to these over-priced art schools to justify it. Especially in this economy, unless you're a truly promising artist and have something to contribute to the community without diluting it, then you'll probably end up with a terrible job while doing art on the side like most.

From what I understand, they were trying to teach creativity which is ridiculous. When alumni visit it was just unsettling to hear how "well" they were doing after graduating. In my experience of being at a university and junior college I can say that is your best bet, don't waste your money or parent's money at these up-scaled schools because they look aesthetically pleasing. This school emphasizes too much on education of art and in my opinion, will only hold you back as an artist or just stereotype your art as nothing special.

The only thing I liked about this school are the drawing classes, such as figure drawing, I have definitely improved at figure drawing because this class is structured really well and has a great instructor. The other liberal art classes aren't great and when people say the workload at this school is tough, these classes are part of the reason, you're given weekly long readings, most of which you will probably not remember after you graduate, but it's a good thing you review them in the next class.