Before I dropped out of The Art Institute of Las Vegas, there were four classes I would have had to take to finish. The following is a list of them and the role they played in deterring me from graduating:
1. Advanced Sound Design. This may have been the last class I would have been able to take any real knowledge. I did talk to students, however, who took it the time it was offered last. The vast majority of the time was similar to my experience in a handful of classes. They spent most of the time just watching and critiquing other students’ work (the best part is that some of the worst work in the class came from an audio student). The instructor did show a few techniques, but it must not have been enough because I heard there was a lot of poor work in the class.
The problem with critiquing other students’ work is just that – Why are students doing the work for the teacher? It was hardly ever was a just a bit, either. If student critiques were limited to 3-5 minutes, fine, but they went as long as 30 minutes. As long as students were critiquing (and there is nothing worse that getting “critiqued” by a worthless student), instructors just let it go. It was perhaps some of the biggest waste of time I’ve ever spent.
Question: Do you need to pay $1,443 and have to be somewhere for 4 hours at a time 11 times to not really learn much and see poor quality work?
2. Post-Production Workshop. I’m very happy I didn’t take this class because it sounds like it was really stressful. The students who actually do their work and assignments are forced to work with other students who don’t care or who don’t do their work on time. I had friends in that class who were stressed out quite a bit because they wouldn’t get what they needed from other students until deadlines were near. If you do get to choose your team, you may be a bit at a disadvantage because if you don’t know a lot of people outside of your program, you are depending on your luck on choosing teammates. This class was just about working with other students. Nothing was taught in the class.
Question: Do you need to pay $1,443 and have to be somewhere for 4 hours at a time 11 times to be disappointed on the dependency of random people?
3. Portfolio Preparation. I withdrew from this class in the Summer of 2014 quarter. It was extremely pointless. All we did was get up in front of the class and “present” to an “employer” our unfinished work and answered all the same questions every single week. In the four weeks I attended the class, I was never taught anything. I sat there and watched a lot of work that wasn’t 3 years + $80,000 worthy like this one, and I endured a lot of students who tried to b-s their way through it.
One of the top officials of the school tried to convince me that the class was designed to compile all of the skills that one has learned. Why do I need a class to use the skills I have learned? Doesn’t that mean that class was a giant waste of time and money? I would have rather taken that $1,443 for the class, and not spent 50+ hours in the classroom. I could have used that time and money to “use my skills” in a much more productive and efficient matter. I was expected to do six projects in four weeks. There’s nothing efficient about that.
Question: Do you need to pay $1,443 and have to be somewhere for 4 hours at a time 11 times to not be taught anything and to waste your time watching other presentations that just aren’t worth their time?
4. Portfolio/Senior Defense. Um, a whole class designed for you to “have time” to work on a presentation booth? That’s ridiculous. It’s another way for students to waste time and money and the school to bankroll from it. In this class (which, as of Fall 2014, is now fused with the Portfolio Preparation class, so the Defense students have had to sit there and just do their work while the Preparation students do their presentations), students spend a very small amount of time with the instructor individually. The instructor basically looks at the individual pieces of work that are in the students’ reels and at their items for the booth at the Portfolio Show.
Question: Do you need to pay $1,443 and have to be somewhere for 4 hours at a time 11 times to spend a handful of minutes with an instructor?
When I picketed, I found out that students were showing up to the class only to be told to just work on their work until 3:30. It blows my mind at how OK everyone is with wasting time and money all in the name of a piece of paper.
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