Ed-
Ok, so you decided to pick one line of my entire post to poke fun of :p
The point was this instructor was bragging about how great he is and how much money he was making, I just wanted to point out how much of a liar he is(if he was making all of that money, he wouldn't have gotten his car conficated by the city of Chicago or his heat cut off, which is a basic necessity) and how lousy the AI schools are because they have to hire liars because anyone with real skills wouldn't be caught dead at an AI school
Got it now? :p
KJ
Oh I get it. You didn't check out the school very well before signing up, paid a lot of money for a substandard education and now you are venting your frustrations to all of us.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
now you are venting your frustrations to all of us.
ed
It's not a matter of being frustrated, I'm just sharing my experience. I did do my research and I didn't find sites like this one until just recently, hence my membership date June 2004 versus July 2003 (when I started at AI).
Besides, it's a free country, I am allowed to voice my opinions. Is it really necessary for you to be so condensending and and down right obnoxious in your replies? I was hoping to get meaningful comments about my post (Versus your "flamming" posts) and maybe to hear from other people in my position and to see where they moved on to.
I see that you are in the education field. Do you try to belittle your students if they're not so holy and wise like yourself? Or do you take the professional approach and try to share in your experiences. If it is the first, I know to avoid Ringling like the Plague.
Regards,
~KJ
Hey I'm just having some fun. The fact that I didn't populate my responses with smiley faces might have confused you. Sorry that it was taken the wrong way.
Thanks for sharing and better luck in you future educational experiences.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
What were the course materials like--re: the instruction and passing along of info?
Was this competent?
Something to bring to your attention/awareness is that students don't always grasp the relevancy of instruction, so that "oragami" class may have some future pertinent value when taken in context of all the other subjects in the course load. I don't know, so I'm just guess based on what you've written.
Were you taking animation, or graphic design or.........???
Instructor competency is always an issue at schools these days, with most of them likely having genuine seasoned pros.
In my own case, I suffered financial setbacks myself while teaching last year and lost property to the repo man, but............but, my story is not universal in that situation either. That kind of thing does happen to people, their day-to-day inconsistency can mean anything.
Schools are, first and foremost businesses, with profit at the end of the day being their sole reason for being. Those schools that can gloss up the veneer of actually providing a quality education gain a better reputation and thus attract a "better" student, and more profit. That education really does need to be sound though, because the word get's around pretty fast if the programs are void of substance.
Schooling in the art field is a tough thing these days, for both sides, because there are now SO many schools out there, offering a extremely large range of study. if one has little exposure to the field they wish to study and eventually enter, gauging the quality and competency of staff teaching it is very difficult.
My rule of thumb that I offerto scrutinze schools: minimum 10 years experience in the field for instructors and a list of credits or clients that you can recognize at least some. This way the instructor, as a pro, has done enough high-profile, or prominent, work to have made respectable inroads into the business.
Granted anyone can claim they've worked for a large ad firm, or Dreamworks, or whatever.......but those claims can be backed up by samples.
I've been on both sides of the teaching thing. I've had idiot instructors and I've had idiot students and have had to contend with both. Some instructors should never be teaching, and some students cop attitudes that no-one can absolve. Hell, I've seen schools that hire their own students and pass them off as industry pros--a very dangerous "in-breeding" process
Your indignation is understandable, based on what you've said,and without additional details thats all I can say.
Were you taking animation, or graphic design or.........???
I was an animation major at ILIA. I chose the location because it was close to home,as I couldn't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the metro area (Chicago). I was also attracted to their placement rates, which my rep said that they only count placement if the student was doing something related to their major. Well, I talked to a girl that I met in advanced drawing and she said 5 of her friends couldn't find jobs and the career services supposedly told each of them "If we get you a job at the video rental store, that's placement." I was appalled!!! She has left the school and I do believe her. It also came out that the school was having some accreditation issues...Does anyone know which is better: Regional accreditation or National accrediation??
What were the course materials like--re: the instruction and passing along of info? Was this competent?
Well my complaint with the drawing classes is that they skipped over a lot of fundamental stuff, like rendering materials so when life drawing came around, we would know how to draw the clothed figure, i mean i felt like when was i supposed to learn this it was just a surprise out of no where. Of course I understand that an artist needs daily practice, but why am I paying all of this money to be in class and I'm not getting even the fundamentals? I could have skipped AI and just bought a bunch of books and learned just as much. Of course I do understand that they can't teach you everything, but I don't feel that I got my money and time's worth. Since I've been in school before, I know all about discipline(sp? I can't spell tonight :D ) and study habits, etc. And even if someone posed the argument that you need the degree (i.e. I'm paying for just the piece of paper)to get your foot in the door, I would raise an eyebrow because I don't believe that is completely true. People have been very successful by pure luck and or who they know. I hope I said that right. My first animation class, I can safely say that I could have just gotten a syllabus from the previous quarter and did everything on my own, I didn't need to pay $1300 for it.
Something to bring to your attention/awareness is that students don't always grasp the relevancy of instruction, so that "oragami" class may have some future pertinent value when taken in context of all the other subjects in the course load.
Maybe the class wasn't so critical for me since I've done a little bit with 3-D graphics, however I have to question it because other art schools have similar programs(of course not every single class is identical), but none of the other schools have this class or anything close, that's why I didn't think it was so critical. The better schools of the industry seem to be doing fine without this class. That's what raised the alarm. Based on the curricculum, the class is sorta just in a category by itself. At one point we were working with bolsa wood and foam board, so I don't see how honestly those materials will help me be a better storyteller, or character design, etc. As far as the other projects, we did a 12 sided box (dodecahedron), then we built a shaper that had insets (truncations), next we had things sticking out of it (stellation), then we built a 3-d puzzle, then came the bolsa wood, & foamcore projects... :confused:
[I]
Instructor competency is always an issue at schools these days, with most of them likely having genuine seasoned pros.
My rule of thumb that I offerto scrutinze schools: minimum 10 years experience in the field for instructors and a list of credits or clients that you can recognize at least some. This way the instructor, as a pro, has done enough high-profile, or prominent, work to have made respectable inroads into the business.
Hell, I've seen schools that hire their own students and pass them off as industry pros--a very dangerous "in-breeding" process[/I]
Actually at ILIA, the only person in the entire department that has experience was my director who just joined the school in December, everyone else either just got their master's degree and is trying to get in just like we hope to be, or they actually attended the school for their bachelor's in the same field, thus the "inbreeding" that you mentioned. Definately outside of the director, no one has 10 years of experience, or even 1 year.
I've been on both sides of the teaching thing. I've had idiot instructors and I've had idiot students and have had to contend with both. Some instructors should never be teaching, and some students cop attitudes that no-one can absolve.
I agree with you whole heartedly on this. But the instructors need to remember that we're shelling out big bucks so if we're demanding, we have the right to be...that Jiba bozo that I spoke of in my original post is not too clear on the concept of. That's when it hit me that the AI schools have a big image problem, because a guy like him would be canned in a heartbeat for threatening a student, but they know that it's hard to recruit people, hence why they do the inbreeding....
In my own case, I suffered financial setbacks myself while teaching last year and lost property to the repo man, but............but, my story is not universal in that situation either. That kind of thing does happen to people, their day-to-day inconsistency can mean anything.
Wow I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I hope things did get better for you. I know people just have bad days, but the incident with the instructor, he planned it.
Schools are, first and foremost businesses, with profit at the end of the day being their sole reason for being. Those schools that can gloss up the veneer of actually providing a quality education gain a better reputation and thus attract a "better" student, and more profit. That education really does need to be sound though, because the word get's around pretty fast if the programs are void of substance.
Yeah, a lot of people I know that I was in class with, aren't returning. I just didn't feel that I was getting my money's worth. Don't get me wrong, I put everything into my animation assignments and still managed to work full time (yes a lot of late nights), but I turned in everything in on time. I'm sure if I had more sleep or wasn't working as much or whatever, it could have been better, but hey, I have bills, what can I say?
Have you or anyone heard anything about the Academy of Art University in San Francisco
~KJ
I'm getting pretty disheartened by some of the stuff I'm reading about schools.
Are there any schools that anyone would recommend that are in the Chicago area?
Are there any schools that anyone would recommend that are in the Chicago area?
I grew up in beautiful (well maybe now so beautiful) Burbank IL, and went to Moraine Valley Community College and then Triton before I got my act together and went to Ringling a few years later; but that's neither here nor there and long ago and far away.
The School at the Art Institute of Chicago has a computer arts program (or used to) but I think it's more fine art driven and not character. As for character driven courses/programs I'm not sure what the area has to offer.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
I'm getting pretty disheartened by some of the stuff I'm reading about schools.
Are there any schools that anyone would recommend that are in the Chicago area?
Hi there-I was born and raised (still here in fact!) in the Chicago area and as far as animation, The two AI schools (The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago & Schaumburg) are it as far as bachelor degrees. I know that a couple of community colleges offer certificates, but I read an article a while back that says the industry wants to see a bachelor's degree, not a certificate, emphasis, concentration, etc.
If that's wrong, I bet that there is a school near you that you can get a certificate from. I wouldn't necessarily move from out of state, if you know what I mean, unless you want to be in Chicago just because!
I heard that Northern Illinois University has a great illustration program; I personally haven't looked into it yet nor know anyone personally that goes there.
My personal plan: Since there aren't any good schools for a bachelor's degree, I'm spending time at College of Dupage (community college) to work on specific areas like life drawing & marker rendering(under Advertising/Illustration); I really want to get into developing sets for my characters, so I'll be in the interior designing classes, last but not least, I have an interest to learn more about actual clothing design, so I'll take a stop in the Fashion Illustration course.
Now after that, I may be in a more of a financial position to move to CA; I had to rule out the Academy of Art because they don't have any scholarships/grants beyond the summer portfolio program and I don't have enough loans to pay for another Bachelor's degree. I may go there for my Master's, not sure yet....Otherwise, I'll be looking more into the state schools out there...
Hope this helps!
~KJ
Thanks for the replies. I think it might be a good idea to look elsewhere outside of the area to pursue the kind of education that I'm looking for in animation if I decide to go that route. I might look into getting a business education first. I'm not sure. I'm going to think about it a while and do some more research. Thanks for the help.
Comments
I can't believe that they would let anyone who drives a Grand Am teach animation! What is this world coming to?
Just goes to show when you are looking for a school always ask to see student work and the faculty parking lot.
It makes me so mad I want to go speeding off in my solid gold Bentley!
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
Well Ed I was looking for comments about the AI system, but
Ed-
Ok, so you decided to pick one line of my entire post to poke fun of :p
The point was this instructor was bragging about how great he is and how much money he was making, I just wanted to point out how much of a liar he is(if he was making all of that money, he wouldn't have gotten his car conficated by the city of Chicago or his heat cut off, which is a basic necessity) and how lousy the AI schools are because they have to hire liars because anyone with real skills wouldn't be caught dead at an AI school
Got it now? :p
KJ
Oh I get it. You didn't check out the school very well before signing up, paid a lot of money for a substandard education and now you are venting your frustrations to all of us.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
I thought the whole point of the forums is to inform other membe
It's not a matter of being frustrated, I'm just sharing my experience. I did do my research and I didn't find sites like this one until just recently, hence my membership date June 2004 versus July 2003 (when I started at AI).
Besides, it's a free country, I am allowed to voice my opinions. Is it really necessary for you to be so condensending and and down right obnoxious in your replies? I was hoping to get meaningful comments about my post (Versus your "flamming" posts) and maybe to hear from other people in my position and to see where they moved on to.
I see that you are in the education field. Do you try to belittle your students if they're not so holy and wise like yourself? Or do you take the professional approach and try to share in your experiences. If it is the first, I know to avoid Ringling like the Plague.
Regards,
~KJ
Hey I'm just having some fun. The fact that I didn't populate my responses with smiley faces might have confused you. Sorry that it was taken the wrong way.
Thanks for sharing and better luck in you future educational experiences.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
What were the course materials like--re: the instruction and passing along of info?
Was this competent?
Something to bring to your attention/awareness is that students don't always grasp the relevancy of instruction, so that "oragami" class may have some future pertinent value when taken in context of all the other subjects in the course load. I don't know, so I'm just guess based on what you've written.
Were you taking animation, or graphic design or.........???
Instructor competency is always an issue at schools these days, with most of them likely having genuine seasoned pros.
In my own case, I suffered financial setbacks myself while teaching last year and lost property to the repo man, but............but, my story is not universal in that situation either. That kind of thing does happen to people, their day-to-day inconsistency can mean anything.
Schools are, first and foremost businesses, with profit at the end of the day being their sole reason for being. Those schools that can gloss up the veneer of actually providing a quality education gain a better reputation and thus attract a "better" student, and more profit. That education really does need to be sound though, because the word get's around pretty fast if the programs are void of substance.
Schooling in the art field is a tough thing these days, for both sides, because there are now SO many schools out there, offering a extremely large range of study. if one has little exposure to the field they wish to study and eventually enter, gauging the quality and competency of staff teaching it is very difficult.
My rule of thumb that I offerto scrutinze schools: minimum 10 years experience in the field for instructors and a list of credits or clients that you can recognize at least some. This way the instructor, as a pro, has done enough high-profile, or prominent, work to have made respectable inroads into the business.
Granted anyone can claim they've worked for a large ad firm, or Dreamworks, or whatever.......but those claims can be backed up by samples.
I've been on both sides of the teaching thing. I've had idiot instructors and I've had idiot students and have had to contend with both. Some instructors should never be teaching, and some students cop attitudes that no-one can absolve. Hell, I've seen schools that hire their own students and pass them off as industry pros--a very dangerous "in-breeding" process
Your indignation is understandable, based on what you've said,and without additional details thats all I can say.
-Ken
Hmm?
Which means the Batmobile is where ?
Hi Ken, I did read your post....
Were you taking animation, or graphic design or.........???
I was an animation major at ILIA. I chose the location because it was close to home,as I couldn't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the metro area (Chicago). I was also attracted to their placement rates, which my rep said that they only count placement if the student was doing something related to their major. Well, I talked to a girl that I met in advanced drawing and she said 5 of her friends couldn't find jobs and the career services supposedly told each of them "If we get you a job at the video rental store, that's placement." I was appalled!!! She has left the school and I do believe her. It also came out that the school was having some accreditation issues...Does anyone know which is better: Regional accreditation or National accrediation??
What were the course materials like--re: the instruction and passing along of info? Was this competent?
Well my complaint with the drawing classes is that they skipped over a lot of fundamental stuff, like rendering materials so when life drawing came around, we would know how to draw the clothed figure, i mean i felt like when was i supposed to learn this it was just a surprise out of no where. Of course I understand that an artist needs daily practice, but why am I paying all of this money to be in class and I'm not getting even the fundamentals? I could have skipped AI and just bought a bunch of books and learned just as much. Of course I do understand that they can't teach you everything, but I don't feel that I got my money and time's worth. Since I've been in school before, I know all about discipline(sp? I can't spell tonight :D ) and study habits, etc. And even if someone posed the argument that you need the degree (i.e. I'm paying for just the piece of paper)to get your foot in the door, I would raise an eyebrow because I don't believe that is completely true. People have been very successful by pure luck and or who they know. I hope I said that right. My first animation class, I can safely say that I could have just gotten a syllabus from the previous quarter and did everything on my own, I didn't need to pay $1300 for it.
Something to bring to your attention/awareness is that students don't always grasp the relevancy of instruction, so that "oragami" class may have some future pertinent value when taken in context of all the other subjects in the course load.
Maybe the class wasn't so critical for me since I've done a little bit with 3-D graphics, however I have to question it because other art schools have similar programs(of course not every single class is identical), but none of the other schools have this class or anything close, that's why I didn't think it was so critical. The better schools of the industry seem to be doing fine without this class. That's what raised the alarm. Based on the curricculum, the class is sorta just in a category by itself. At one point we were working with bolsa wood and foam board, so I don't see how honestly those materials will help me be a better storyteller, or character design, etc. As far as the other projects, we did a 12 sided box (dodecahedron), then we built a shaper that had insets (truncations), next we had things sticking out of it (stellation), then we built a 3-d puzzle, then came the bolsa wood, & foamcore projects... :confused:
[I]
Instructor competency is always an issue at schools these days, with most of them likely having genuine seasoned pros.
My rule of thumb that I offerto scrutinze schools: minimum 10 years experience in the field for instructors and a list of credits or clients that you can recognize at least some. This way the instructor, as a pro, has done enough high-profile, or prominent, work to have made respectable inroads into the business.
Hell, I've seen schools that hire their own students and pass them off as industry pros--a very dangerous "in-breeding" process[/I]
Actually at ILIA, the only person in the entire department that has experience was my director who just joined the school in December, everyone else either just got their master's degree and is trying to get in just like we hope to be, or they actually attended the school for their bachelor's in the same field, thus the "inbreeding" that you mentioned. Definately outside of the director, no one has 10 years of experience, or even 1 year.
I've been on both sides of the teaching thing. I've had idiot instructors and I've had idiot students and have had to contend with both. Some instructors should never be teaching, and some students cop attitudes that no-one can absolve.
I agree with you whole heartedly on this. But the instructors need to remember that we're shelling out big bucks so if we're demanding, we have the right to be...that Jiba bozo that I spoke of in my original post is not too clear on the concept of. That's when it hit me that the AI schools have a big image problem, because a guy like him would be canned in a heartbeat for threatening a student, but they know that it's hard to recruit people, hence why they do the inbreeding....
In my own case, I suffered financial setbacks myself while teaching last year and lost property to the repo man, but............but, my story is not universal in that situation either. That kind of thing does happen to people, their day-to-day inconsistency can mean anything.
Wow I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I hope things did get better for you. I know people just have bad days, but the incident with the instructor, he planned it.
Schools are, first and foremost businesses, with profit at the end of the day being their sole reason for being. Those schools that can gloss up the veneer of actually providing a quality education gain a better reputation and thus attract a "better" student, and more profit. That education really does need to be sound though, because the word get's around pretty fast if the programs are void of substance.
Yeah, a lot of people I know that I was in class with, aren't returning. I just didn't feel that I was getting my money's worth. Don't get me wrong, I put everything into my animation assignments and still managed to work full time (yes a lot of late nights), but I turned in everything in on time. I'm sure if I had more sleep or wasn't working as much or whatever, it could have been better, but hey, I have bills, what can I say?
Have you or anyone heard anything about the Academy of Art University in San Francisco
~KJ
Schools in Chicago area?
I'm getting pretty disheartened by some of the stuff I'm reading about schools.
Are there any schools that anyone would recommend that are in the Chicago area?
I grew up in beautiful (well maybe now so beautiful) Burbank IL, and went to Moraine Valley Community College and then Triton before I got my act together and went to Ringling a few years later; but that's neither here nor there and long ago and far away.
The School at the Art Institute of Chicago has a computer arts program (or used to) but I think it's more fine art driven and not character. As for character driven courses/programs I'm not sure what the area has to offer.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
Unfortunately no schools in IL....
Hi there-I was born and raised (still here in fact!) in the Chicago area and as far as animation, The two AI schools (The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago & Schaumburg) are it as far as bachelor degrees. I know that a couple of community colleges offer certificates, but I read an article a while back that says the industry wants to see a bachelor's degree, not a certificate, emphasis, concentration, etc.
If that's wrong, I bet that there is a school near you that you can get a certificate from. I wouldn't necessarily move from out of state, if you know what I mean, unless you want to be in Chicago just because!
I heard that Northern Illinois University has a great illustration program; I personally haven't looked into it yet nor know anyone personally that goes there.
My personal plan: Since there aren't any good schools for a bachelor's degree, I'm spending time at College of Dupage (community college) to work on specific areas like life drawing & marker rendering(under Advertising/Illustration); I really want to get into developing sets for my characters, so I'll be in the interior designing classes, last but not least, I have an interest to learn more about actual clothing design, so I'll take a stop in the Fashion Illustration course.
Now after that, I may be in a more of a financial position to move to CA; I had to rule out the Academy of Art because they don't have any scholarships/grants beyond the summer portfolio program and I don't have enough loans to pay for another Bachelor's degree. I may go there for my Master's, not sure yet....Otherwise, I'll be looking more into the state schools out there...
Hope this helps!
~KJ
Thanks for the replies. I think it might be a good idea to look elsewhere outside of the area to pursue the kind of education that I'm looking for in animation if I decide to go that route. I might look into getting a business education first. I'm not sure. I'm going to think about it a while and do some more research. Thanks for the help.