How did/do you like art school?

>>2992668
I went to a community college for my first two years of college, and found they had a strong art section, with great classes and a strong student community. I really dove in - because I was working and taking my time, it took me 4 years to get the credits to transfer to a 4 year school - but I'd taken so many art courses, it was worth it. ( I also got into stage lighting, and almost switched majors to that.) I took all the beginning courses, and intermediate, and advanced, in drawing, art history, composition, life drawing, painting (water color and oil), and had a strong portfolio and a student juried second place award for an art competition. I then went to a school with a strong illustration department, and studied under some brilliant teachers, one of whom was an illustrator for the New Yorker magazine. Another was one of the art directors for the NFL. That's when it got hardcore - the core illustration classes were brutal, but I also got to take advanced anatomy, sculpture, more figure drawing, print making, color theory, design, and more art history.

I loved every minute of it, made a ton of friends. Would do it again. I paid for the last years myself, so they really counted. The program was small, so it was very competitive, and they openly stated they were going to try and chase away the less than serious students, so our illustration classes were generally about half the size as they started out.

Considering how much I learned, from brilliant and talented teachers, and the friendships I made, it was completely worth it.

Art is like anything, too, when you finish up - it's who you know. You never know, the art director you're submitting a portfolio to could have been in one of your classes, or one of your teachers.

We also got a LOT of info on how to build our portfolios, how to deal with clients, stuff like that.

If you are naturally talented it's better to learn without it.

If you aren't a natural they are a big help... imo.

i went to school for digital media and game design when i really wanted to be a game artist. still not sure if i should should be going into graphic design or art. i have some schools picked out but my parent's don't want to shell out more money on education for me. so i'll need to take out more loans or save up some money in the mean time.

literally pointless.

Bahi became a frickin animator; working for an anine studio, all from being self taught.

art school at this point is just for people who.lack self discipline

>>2992668
I got kicked out for reasons that would usually send me to jail. Oh, and I was shit, and they would've kicked me out eventually anyway.

>>2992668
It's worthless and it's not. It'll teach you how to teach yourself properly, or at least that's what you'll get out of it.

You won't get very good critique, you'll just get your art teachers telling you your shit is great if you're halfway decent/not absolute dogshit, so you'll keep paying the tuition and putting food on their table. I rarely got decent critique from my teachers, despite my work being pretty trash only to post it here, have it properly torn apart by anons, and actually properly learn how to improve.

It was actually /ic/ that played the biggest role in me leaving art school. I figured, "what's the point of me paying 400€ a month for this when I have much better resources and critique online, when I can save my money and use it to buy a Cintiq (and travel - to Tokyo)?"

Imo, with art school, either go big, or don't go at all. You can self learn much better. Unless you're going to a prestigious trade school like FZD where they're gonna make sure you bust your ass drawing 12 hours a day or drop you, just to keep up their name, you're wasting your money.

Imo, you're much better off saving your money for a really good school while you self learn the fundies, than pay for a bad school that'll only waste your time. Believe it or not, this place isn't so bad for improving, especially for beginners. /ic/ will teach you to not be so precious about your work, which is certainly a plus many artists do lack.

>>2994426
Pretty much this is the reason I wanted to go back to school. I find it pretty impossible to motivate myself to draw. At least if I was in school I would be getting out of the house everyday, getting challenges and interesting projects and be paying people to push me to draw. Sounds great. All depends on the person, I guess.

>>2994576
It depends though man, my experience with art school was as follows:

3 hours a day, 3 days a week + homework.

Two teachers, one taught fundies, one taught to work with different mediums, plus stuff like character design, etc... Teachers alternated, Design teacher was more frequent, fundies teacher only got 1/3 days. Once every two weeks, we did live drawings with Fundies teacher where he'd bring a model to class, we'd draw pretty much 2.5 hours, with 30 mins at the end for theory (these were the best days).

Teacher 2:
1 hour for lecture, 1 hour to literally watch the teacher paint, 1 hour to work, subtract the breaks (x3 - 2 mins/2mins/10mins).

Teacher 1:
1 hour for lecture, 2 hours to work (subtract breaks), covered the basics - perspective, lightning, etc... anatomy was covered from the start once every two weeks till end year, construction was covered with design teacher.

Pros:
-got to try various mediums I wouldn't have bothered with otherwise, like Gouache and Acrylics
-lots of insider info into the industry, and all the "shortcuts" they use, stuff that /ic/ will never tell you out pride/lack of awareness
-the fundies were well covered, and the exercises applied that knowledge well to help you practice properly, this is what I mean by "you'll learn to self study better" it's easy to build a solid routine to learn once you've been taught. Art education can be a bit tricky
-learned about a bunch of new artists who helped diversify my influences
-networking: you'll meet other artists, and being around people of similar level will motivate you to improve
-cheap life drawing with feedback

>>2994603
cont.

Cons:
-too much time wasted, not enough time spent drawing
-the fundies weren't practiced thoroughly enough, art school isn't enough
-expensive, and not worth it compared to the material available for free online, a lot of the same knowledge is found on YT and in art books
-a lot of shitty artists, and manbabies who'll do nothing but complain/interrupt class/ask stupid questions/soak up teacher critique, who don't really care to put in the time to git gud, and are having the course paid for by their parents as they have no real direction in life, and this is more of a social thing for them
-feedback from design teacher was shit "looks great!"

Art school is, you'll get out what you put in, if you lack discipline already, art school won't make up for it. I can't deny that I did learn a lot, but I also supplemented all my learning with an extra 3 hours at Starbucks, every day I had class, and an additional 4 hours at home on the days I didn't.

So take that into account. My advice, do it for a year at most to get a rough idea of how to self learn properly, and then drop it and self learn. You'll get more quality hours of work in that way.

>>2994603
>>2994605
Yeah, heavily depends on the school and teachers, too. 3 hours a day at 3 hours a week sounds like not much time at all. I was looking at full time programs with 2-4 years in length. Also yes, the cost. Any schools I wanted to attend are far away and you have to factor in the housing and food costs.

>if you lack discipline already, art school won't make up for it.

this is a good point, too. If I won the lottery I would go back to school in a heartbeat. Right now is just not worth it.

>>2992668
I loved it. I couldn't afford it after the first year so I left, but the connections I made in that first year were so important in my early years. It's not for everyone though.

As for them being worthless- You get in what you put out. The school I went to had amazing teachers and all they asked was that you do the work and show up so they can critique you etc. Some kids couldn't do that and surprise surprise they are the ones that fell behind, dropped out, and now don't work in the industry. Very few people were actually able to keep up with the work and produce good content and those people basically had jobs lined up through their teachers by 3rd year.

TL:DR: bust your ass and be a sociable, likable person

>>2994675
It depends on the school, too. The Art Academy and the other franchise art schools are worthless, and probably make up a lot of the bad exeriences that people have - they're honestly a joke, and more of a babysitting service for trust fundies than producing serious artists. But if you visit a school like Pratt, or CalArts, or the college of arts and crafts in Oakland, or any state school with a serious art department and who also offer design and illustration and other majors, you'll find better communities, more to learn, and less of the snobs and neckbeards that the franchise schools attract. Also, your experience will differ between departments - the fine art department at my school was all shit abstract and post modern bullshit, but the illustration and industrial design and design courses were full of people into technique and the other things this forum is into.

A BFA opens a lot more doors than sitting in a basement grinding Loomis. Just sayin'.

And yes, you get out, what you put in. That's the same for every college kid. I remember we had a couple of NEETs in the dorms - never left their rooms except to go to class and eat, never went to events, never explored campus, never did anything, and then would whine and complain that it sucked. How would they know? They never went anywhere!

I honestly just sucked at self teaching myself as well as self motivation....literally 5 years (in-between working and stuff) of just trying to teach myself. However, it was 5 years of honestly just making mistakes and learning the wrong things, which in turn lead to some really bad habits. I didn't really have any mentors or help that could point me in the right direction. As well as had a lot of stress going on in my home life (but really who doesn't). So instead of living my life, I went back to school.

Honestly in one year I've been back, I have learned more, and drawn more than I ever have in all the years I've been drawing. So I'd say art school helped me out a lot. Like, I'm no pro, I am far from it, but I at least seen some improvement. As well, the school I go to has daily life drawing for 3 hours a day, along with the regular 3 hours of classes everyday. It has helped so much. Just from the work load alone and the critiques....although you will sometimes get that one prof who wants to be the "cool one" and give everyone A's...I hated that class. The class I got the lowest mark in was the most meaningful to me. They didn't hand out perfect marks cause you could always be pushed farther. They seemed to have the most learning value. Loved it.

However, once again it also depends on the school you go to. The last school I went to (yes I'm doing this twice >_>), honestly didn't teach me anything in the 4 years I went there. I got out in my 4th year, looked at my portfolio, and realized I wasted my money and they didn't teach me anything. This second time around is going good for me though. Although, yeah....I'm taking embarrassingly longer at this than most people should. Need to refine how I study.

Its funny how people here say arty school is pointless but they all suck.

>>2994700
also, kind of unrelated, but to add this this...schools have changed since the last time I attended. It's not the teachers, but the students. So many kids being all social justice, waves of blue hair, everyone is special, no one can have an opinion. Had to do a "social justice" project at one point, picked a topic, drew it, wasn't good enough for the other students, and got called out for my white maleness....oh god I wish I was joking. Also kept being told how everything is now considered hate speech...uggh, I just want to draw, don't care about these politics. Not to mention, practically everyone is self diagnosed with some type of fashionable mental disorder. So many people in my class alone with PTSD, mixed with a cocktail of other illnesses. Like, sure, benefit of the doubt, maybe they have it, but just the large number of people claiming it sounds fishy.

Bright side, seems the more serious students don't bother with that at least, and those who do seem to drop within a few months to a year.

>>2994717
I got told I was sexisy because I paint mostly females.

I said I like to consider my work anti sexist and that's why I like to depict females as people, with different body shapes and races.

I got told it wasn't up to males to decide what is and isn't sexist.

I argued against this and the all the retards hated me.

Funny thing is the people who call my artwork sexist for being portraits of women wear band shirts of 80's rock bands that had lyrics about fucking sluts and groupies.

>>2994717
I had a social justice major (what) in my class and she tried her best to chastise me for not doing things her way

"Your critique is too harsh. Maybe YOU should worry about your own art"

Her art was amazingly bad.

>>2994725
To be fair, it's weird and somewhat creepy seeing guys who draw/paint nothing but girls. There was one guy I knew that did that and his portfolio was so....gross. He drew women like whores and the rest of his sketchbook was drawings of Batman.

His drawing portfolio honestly confused me. It was so bad, but I was intrigued by his immaturity. He seriously thought he was good enough to pass with a wall of ugly selfie sketches and a sketchbook full of doodles of women slobbering and milking their tits. I had a great laugh when I saw it.

>>2994684
>A BFA opens a lot more doors than sitting in a basement grinding Loomis. Just sayin'

Another good point.

>>2994717
lel are you fucking kidding me? you sound like a whiny little nerd. why did you even care about what your classmates thought? just put your head down and do your fucking work.

>>2994741
That's not what my art looks like though.

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The girl who did this has a bachelor of fine art.

I think that says a lot about the quality of art education.

>>2994767
>>2994770
Depends on the school and teacher. 6/15 people passed drawing portfolio review this semester, and that kind of art would get passed over by my teachers

>>2994767
From what school?

the only thing you go to art school for is the diploma and even then it doesn't matter because if your art looks like >>2994770 no ones gonna hire you just because you have a piece of paper that says "qualified"

go to a good school, get a good degree, and work on your art as a hobby. there are other ways to get connections in the art world

>>2992668
I think Art School is what you make out of it.
Either way you can just go to the classes, do the Homework like it was nothing and never Improve, never connect witth other People, never open yourself to new things.
And you will come out as good as you were at the start.
Or you can actually try to take it more seriously, try make new Friends, try to connect more with the Teachers etc... Trying new things in your Homework

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>>2992668
>I've definitely heard the gospels of art school being worthless, so spare me. I'm mostly going for the sake of having a degree at this point.

>"tell me what I want to hear to comfort me before I waste my time and money pursuing a garbage degree"

No.

>>2994684
>A BFA opens a lot more doors than sitting in a basement grinding Loomis. Just sayin'.

Patently false, and proven so over and over again.

>>2994783
>the only thing you go to art school for is the diploma and even then it doesn't matter because if your art looks like >>2994770 no ones gonna hire you just because you have a piece of paper that says "qualified"

This.

File: I have a $75,000 art degree. I am more intelligent than you could ever hope to be..jpg (200KB, 1000x750px) Image search: [Google]

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Daily reminder that this is what happens when you ask someone with a BFA to post their work

>>2992668
I literrally only did audition at the academy of arts, just to prove I could get in.
I had a lot of those pretentious "artistic" hipsters in highschool who all desperatly tried to get in, most got rejected and others got in after 4 rounds of audition.
And now? I got an academic bachelor in Forest & Nature Conservation and currently studying History

>>2995128
Not really.

Degrees help if you want to do government work.

art school sucks

>>2995646
>Forest & Nature Conservation and currently studying History

that's not really much better as far as employment prospects are concerned

>>2998362
You obviously know nothing about the job market.

>>2992668
Dropped out after less than a year in art school when I found it wasn't giving me what I wanted. I just self taught and went to freelancing afterwards, now I work in a large studio. I know I'm the exception and not the norm though. Even with art school the vast majority of the people aiming for a career in the field will fail.

Art school is for dumb hippies.

It really really depends on your personality and where you go to school. I'm studying illustration in university and the course I'm on is super small, and there's classes all day every day so it feels like I'm getting my money's worth. There are plenty of other schools that are in shambles, where students are left to their own devices, that's usually the case with fine art courses so I'd avoid those and go for design courses like illustration or graphic design. Even though the uni I go to is considered pretty average overall the illustration course really shines. Make sure you go to a school based on the course, not its overall academic reputation. If anything thanks to the course I'm on I got odd jobs through the tutors or other students contacts.

Wether you go or not you need to have your shit together and know what your goal is roughly, because it's a waste of time and money if you aimlessly float through it.

>>2993621

where are you from, the US I assume?