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The Ringling College of Art and Design

How this student rated the school
Educational QualityC Faculty AccessibilityB
Useful SchoolworkD Excess CompetitionF
Academic SuccessD Creativity/ InnovationC
Individual ValueD University Resource UseB
Campus Aesthetics/ BeautyA+ FriendlinessD
Campus MaintenanceD- Social LifeF
Surrounding CityF Extra CurricularsF
SafetyF
Describes the student body as:
Friendly, Afraid, Arrogant, Approachable, Broken Spirit, Snooty, Closeminded

Describes the faculty as:
Friendly, Helpful, Arrogant, Condescending, Self Absorbed

Female
Bright
Lowest Rating
Excess Competition
F
Highest Rating
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty
A+
She cares more about Excess Competition than the average student.
Date: Nov 14 2012
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
All of the friends I made here, every single one, are leaving after one semester and so am I. Ringling may have once been a great school but it is no longer.

Last year they changed the curriculum to make it even more challenging and segregated. They put freshmen families into place, which means you are stuck with the same group of people in every class all year. Like middle school. How is this a college experience? What makes this especially terrible is that peers in the media arts- that is students in animation, game art and design, and illustration, are especially egotistical and downright nasty. They will befriend you dependent on whether you are already amazing at drawing or not. But didn't we come here to learn to draw? A good friend of mine here left with good grades before the semester was up because she couldn't stand all the fake people who befriended her just because of her art. Credits you earn here won't transfer by the way, so don't stick it out all semester if you're as miserable as we were.

Ringling is like purgatory. Or worse, it's like hell. There are no good clubs or activities; in fact, the main club here is Christian Club. At an art college? You are also surrounded by a ghetto. On weekends, this campus is pretty much a dead zone or wasteland. My friends and I had to resort to drinking Robitussin on the weekends because without a car, there is absolutely NOTHING else to do except for kill yourself. Seriously. No parties, nightlife, or events going on that aren't academic related. Every store and restaurant located in the ghetto closes at 10:00 PM. As if you could even make it to any of them by foot without getting killed.

The dorms here are nice but not well maintained, at least not in Goldstein North Hall. A facilities employee came in to fix my air conditioner that was leaking, making a funny noise, and not cooling the room whatsoever. I complained to him that it was getting hot in there and becoming hard to breathe, but he would only fix the leak because a wrench icon had not appeared on the controls. Two days later, a wrench icon appeared and the room now smells of mold and mildew. I have complained many times about this and sent many facilities requests, but they have yet to do anything about it. I can not sleep in that room because it is hazardous to my health.

Another thing hazardous to my health here is the food, which lacks nutrients of any kind. You only have three options on campus: Hammond Commons, the Brickman Cafe, and the Outtakes Cafe. Hammonds will make you fat very quickly. The Brickman Cafe actually has pretty good soups and sandwiches, but in very small portions that won't fill you up. The Outtakes Cafe is just junkfood with prices that are nothing short of scandalous. If you do insist on going to this godforsaken place, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT waste your money on the meal plan. It is only good for three meals a day at specific times with no rollover credit. How's that for a scam?

Don't even get me started on the isolation. Ringling purposely isolates everyone with their extreme security system. "Fobs" are used to get to each individual floor in Goldstein, and each hall. This means even the long and short halls are separated on each floor! Forget having friends in other dormitories altogether because your "fob" won't get you in.
In short, Ringling was the worst decision I have ever made in my entire life, and a big fat waste of precious life time and money. It was like a four month acid trip gone horribly, horribly, wrong, in which I lost all contact with reality. I'm even tempted to say high school was better but alas, I will not.
Below I will list the types of people who should attend Ringling:
If you are the type of person who cares only about curriculum and not college experience, or even having any friends, choose Ringling.
If you are already fantastic at drawing and would like to have fake friends, choose Ringling.
If you are so full of yourself that you think your college will make you famous, choose Ringling.
If your idea of a party is watching a Dreamworks or Pixar film, choose Ringling.
If you like anime (a lot) choose Ringling.
If you consider yourself a member of the furry or brony community, choose Ringling.
If you want to dye your hair to be unique and different but are too afraid to dye more than two strands of it, choose Ringling.
If you are a christian, choose Ringling.
If you want to lose all contact with the outside world and even other majors, choose Ringling.
If you want to live a stressful, miserable life and never acquire a family, choose Ringling.
If you don't care about having a love life whatsoever, choose Ringling.
If you want to have no life at all, choose Ringling.
If you already have years of experience in animation, can be the best in your class, and want to be a Pixar animator, choose Ringling.
If you are a commuter, choose Ringling.
If you do not fall into ALL of these categories than please, for the love of god, DO NOT CHOOSE RINGLING! You will end up wasting 40k a year to be locked up in a beautiful looking jail.

         
Responses
Oh, and Ringling kids completely harrassed me on facebook for making one freaking remark about how much I hated it there.
responseThis school is about applying yourself. The real world will not spoon you feed you success - you have to work hard to achieve your goals. If you do no have a strong work ethic, or are unsure about what you want to do do, this is not the school for you. The arts are a difficult field to find success in, so having a lax work ethic will result in you failing at this school. This not a college experience, but an environment to learn the skills required to compete in extremely competitive fields, not to party hard on the weekends.
responseI'm sorry Ringling was not what you expected. You may have had very negative experiences, but mine were drastically different. I am one of the worst drawers in my class, but I've made many friends who helped me out. It could be the class of 2016 that is a problem. I've seen the upcoming freshmen, taken classes with them, and I'm not really that thrilled with their mindset. Believe me, we were all like that until sophomore year. Now we know just what we're up against, and it's very daunting.

There are definitely healthy options on campus if you so choose them. Brickman Cafe is full of soups and salads. The commons has a salad bar too. Hot and cold Sandwhiches at the cafe or meals in the commons are usually not unhealthy at all. Buffet style, so take what you want and leave the rest.

As for the work, you just gotta take it in strides. Ringling has a very high reputation for being one of the hardest and greatest art schools, and they're not going to live it down. If you're serious about getting the absolute best education, Ringling is for you. If you want to have fun with art but you're not serious about heading into a competitive career, you'll definitely want to look elsewhere. If there are issues like inefficient class organization, we mention it in our end-of-the-year course evaluations. The structure is changing and improving all the time.

commentOkay, I'm 13, go to middle school, and according to the whole school, amazing at drawing. I keep seeing this school ringling pop up when i type art and design. I want to go there but with all these bad reviews, I'm a bit swayed. Is this school really that bad?
responseTo be honest I desperately want out of this school. Its not at all what I thought it was going to be and I feel trapped. HOWEVER even I can admit that at least half of the complaints here are fabricated or at the very least grossly exaggerated. For example, this school has a very low (relative) christian population- in fact I'd say if you're not someone who identifies as a "tumblr leftist" you'd probably get tired of the socio-political atmosphere at Ringling very quickly. It's an art school, what do you expect.

To address the person above-

It could be the class of 2016 that is a problem
Take it from a current member of the class of '16- it is.

I want out of this school because I have come to realize that my brain is not built to comprehend the arts the way I see my peers do- I am an extremely left-brained person and I know that I would be happier in a field that is not so heavily subjective and abstract. Also because the amount of debt I'll be graduating with is insane and completely not OK. But- for those who were born to do art, and have their mommies and daddies to write their student loan checks, this is a pretty great school. For the CA department. I cant speak for any of the other departments.

commentI am considering this school as my transfer school. I've been to the campus and stayed in a hotel in that neighborhood. Let me clarify, the neighborhood in actuality isn't bad. It isn't. The majority of the reviewers here are jumping on a band wagon on a couple bad experiences in my opinion.

During my stay I walked around by myself, alone, and at night. I felt nothing wrong. No place is safe, if you want a posh experience, stay on campus. However, during my stay, I actually came to realize where the comments about break ins come in.

On several occasions I saw, fairly nice cars with their windows half or completely open, with valuables right there in the open for anyone to cop a feel. I also saw a door wide open, with no one inside. The owner of the vehicle left to go into Walgreens real quick and din't even bother. On top of that, i saw 2 cars with their keys still in the ignitions while their cars were locked. So if anything, based on my observation, it's because of the student's own neglect and not because of the actual neighborhood.

This isn't the past where you could trust that even if you left your door unlocked nothing would happen. There are thieves everywhere. Take responsibility. There's even a family friendly restaurant or golfing place (i forgot) there. They wouldn't put something like that in a dangerous neighborhood.

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