going to SCAD?

[Hunger_Artist]

wondering if any other people here are going to SCAD this fall. Ill be starting out there in a couple of days.

I think Sammy went/is attending but I dont really know anyone else.

so, anyone going? speak up!

[malicious]

I actually thought about going to SCAD for quite a while. Then I was tempted by the Art Institute of Phoenix for video game art. That was cool and all, and I've no ill will toward the AI, but I dropped out. The thing about art schools, as with any schools, is that you only get what you take out of it. I know, I know, everyone says that all the time, but seriously, if you're going to commit to an art school, make it count. Kick ass, take names, and have fun.

[Neil]

Yeah definetely get the most of your experience. I graduated from SCAD in 2001, since then they have done some major reconstructions to their programs(wish i had when I was there).

I was a computer art major(3d animation) but now that I look back I wish I did graphic design / computer art(interactive, motion graphics) as it is actually more relevant to where I am working now.

What are you going to major in?

[AfroLaxMan]

i graduated in 96 with a computer art bachelor.

I didn't even recognize any of the core classes anymore when I looked at getting my masters.

When I was there, there were at most 12 peeps in the class, which works well with my ADD. The core classes had a mix of xrew ballz, but a couple really stood out. I had a lecture my senior year, 20th century art, and the prof rocked my world. He had an air initially that was pompus and arrogant. After a term, I didn't lose that impression, but his attitude was backed up 20-fold with his knowlegde. Toughest lecture I had ever taken in my college carreer, and I got the most out of his class more than just about any other in the whole college.
but it doesn't matter if you don't do anytihg with your knoweldge. good school, but georgia sucked.

[Bretton]

I'm most likely going to SCAD after high school. I might go to the summer program this year too. It seems like a really nice school.

[Devilock138]

Art school is an island. You have only what you take with you. If you suck going in, you will suck coming out.

And I simply don't have any high regard for scad... or art schools in general. I guess its because I've lived 20 minutes from their monopolized, downtown renovating, commercialized, 'hot topic employee' looking base of command for 20 years.

In high school I became elidgable for a scholarship. Didn't take long looking into scad that the only thing you brought out of it was a worthless piece of paper with an expensive name on it for your next job app. Plus my sister went and after a year quit because she was actually a good artist. She felt like they were trying to intentionally 'dumb her down'.

Don't get me wrong; great graphic arts/computer arts programs, but seriously... as far as painting/drawing goes: a shitfest of crap. Anyone who goes there for traditional art is most likely more professional at sucking then Jenna Jameson. Oh, and the 'professors'... biggest self righteous dicks on the planet. Oh, wait, that goes for ALL the staff/student body. The prerequisite for teaching at scad is the ability to gab a bunch of rhetoric nonsense and looking somewhat emo-fashioned with the little soul-patch.

Georgia weather gets to be over a hundred degrees in 98.9% humidity by the way. And, no, Georgia doesn't suck unless you're an uncultured boob that hasn't seen anything but Savannah and Atlanta.

[Hunger_Artist]

bwahahaha

Niel- I was thinking about going into game design.. but Im also leaning towards animation/illustration.

Devilock-cheers, I hear similar stories all the time.. I can only hope that if the academic is as bad as you say that the scenery will be enough inspiration for me.


so, anyone else going?

[AfroLaxMan]

uncultured, maybe, but definitely a boob. i seem to have fallen on my face once again, and i resign myself to my uncultured opinions, as they do no good to no one, and add frustration to me and my situation.

good luck in school, Hunger Artist, and i hope you find the good professors, for they make all the difference in any school.

[fukifino]

Just so you know, Hunger Artist, Devilock138 has a large chip on his shoulder (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29872), so take what he says with a grain of salt.

[Sammy]

I had a fucking amazing time at SCAD! there are some really amazing professors there, especially if you take the time to research some of them and get into their classes.

I owe everything I have professional riding on me to those teachers and my friends there. I've always felt confodent that I could draw, but I was 1/10th of what I am now after an education.

To put it into perspective: I hated markers / had never touched one ... untill three years ago when John Morris forced one into my hands with a threat of me failing the class...
Those are they type of simple life-altering instances you run into with an art education.

A LOT of the fellow students can be slackers there and get by, just make sure you aren't one of them and you'll do great.

[J Bradford]

Don't get me wrong; great graphic arts/computer arts programs, but seriously... as far as painting/drawing goes: a shitfest of crap. Anyone who goes there for traditional art is most likely more professional at sucking then Jenna Jameson. Oh, and the 'professors'... biggest self righteous dicks on the planet. Oh, wait, that goes for ALL the staff/student body.

Actually, I personally think it's the other way around. SCAD's foundation professors for painting and drawing can rival the greats that you would find at this site. Not all of them, of course. But Professor Ching Cheng Hung and Jeff Markowski are a couple that blew me away. And the computer art department? Blahahah.. I felt fortunate that professors atleast knew enough about the programs to teach them. I wouldn't confuse great equipment/hardware with professors. SCAD is always more than willing to drop dollars on a new army of LCD monitors when they have already had really nice 21' Sony Trinitrons (an example I heard recently, I've been out of Savannah for over a year now).

[AmishCommy]

Hunger, I've alway's admired your interesting, expresive style, little did i know that you were just a kid. Well good luck at SCAD. I would have picked a beter school if i were you but I ended up going there and gradumakated in 2002. I agree with some of the things Devilock138 has to say. as a school there is definetly room for improvement. But i had a great time with the friends i made. and there were a bunch of good professors (Jeff Markowski being one of them.) Keep us posted on what major you choose and what profesors you take.

In disagreement to Devilock138's phrase "If you suck going in, you will suck coming out" if you don't push yourself you'll continue to suck. I thought i was hot shit going in and i was disapointed that there were not a lot of people that i considered better than myself. but in retrospect i sucked a lot and i did improve a lot. and looking at all the art on this site i realize how much i still suck.

one of my beefs with SCAD is that they did not push me as much as i would have liked to be pushed. but this is also one of SCAD's plusses. in the real world no one is going to push you to improve only you can do that.

[Neil]

Hmmm thread must have faded away before I saw it.

As others have said, perhaps they don't push you much but most teachers will tell you up front that it is your work that will get you through the class, not some babying. The one big exception to the rule that I saw was my final computer art professor when I did final project. He was very strict about the rules and actually failed two kids right in front of us for not showing up 3 times to class. He was strict with deadlines which you have in the real world and if you miss your final project deadline you fail.

In terms of the computer experience (keep in mind this is 1998-2001) I felt that I already had more knowledge, or perhaps more of a keen modern perspective towards design than many of the professors had. In fact I had a couple teachers when I handed in work tell me that I should be working in the industry and offered to recommend me to various companies.

The most I believe I learned in some of the fundamental classes, such as color theory with Steve Knudsen and 2D animation. I ended up using more pastel, watercolor, and guauche than I ever used before and it helped me as a whole as an artist but if some of those things helped in my current career is debatable.

Did SCAD help my career? Well it did in some respects but I am not employed with a company, I work as a self employed designer and not in the trade that I graduated in. For all the Maya, Studio Max, Avid, and Flint work that I did, I rarely use those programs in my current graphic work. In some respects I wish they offered classes on real world business models as many of the students are freelance and self employed without any real business experience.

[AmishCommy]

neil - the problem with the foundation cources is that they are worthless to any serious art student. to me it was a waste of time and a waste of money. I had my best friend join SCAD a year after me and she tested out of all the foundations classes. SCAD still found a way to get their money from her but at least she got to take worthwile classes like fashion, printmaking, painting... Had i known that I could have tested out i would have in a snap. Its a good thing i didn't have to take drawing I because i had AP credit.otherwise i would have shot someone. this is SCAD's major weak piont. if they had some kind of addmission policy that did not include the "you got the caish? come right in" policy. and if you remember the whole giving full rides to athletes deal from freshman year.

As far as real world practices, i was lucky enough to get it in the Illustration department. but that may have changed becasue the best proffessors either left (Durwin Talon) or passed away (Traci Haymans died of a brain tumor in march 2004). but i was also a Sequential Art major and they had no real world practice at all. Classes frequently went into geekboy discussions about Spiderman and Superman.

[Neil]

You are definetely correct. Many of the "foundation cources" are worthless, I was just pointing out a few that I actually gained something in. As with your friend I was able to skip out of quite a few classes (around 5) because before going to SCAD I went to UConn and took some art and core classes there to save money. :) I am not a traditional artist however, as in a painter or sculptor, if that is what you mean by serious. I have a long history of drawing but since my early days most of my work is design.

We were probably there the same time, the Athletes thing was a BIG DEAL because half of them had no art experience and just went there because they were getting a free ride (not for being artists but athletes) and in an art school. That made me quite upset.

I remember their sequential program was still pretty new back then, they were in a corner of the library building for a while and their classes weren't very large compared to say computer art.

One of my biggest gripes was how the courses were structured over the 4 year span. You have almost no major classes until your mid second year and sometimes into your third year because of all the core classes you have to take. I know for a fact though that they did restructure a lot of the requirements and added some classes (at least in computer art) after I left that I could have really used. I guess colleges learn as they go too and restructure to meet new demands. It is unfortunate that you see changes happen after you graduate.

Did you get a job out of the experience?

[Rkhon]

If you go to SCAD be sure to join a strong gang. They wanted me because I'm pretty good with a bo staff.

SCAD looks awesome, but I was turned off by all the crime stories I heard.

[Neil]

Well Savannah has quite a few bad parts and they all seem to be right next to school buildings. Weston and Dyson dorms are right next to the ghetto and close to MLK Blvd's bad side. The computer art building (the old pink one) is right next to the ghetto, and the further out buildings Anderson Hall and that other one are also on the border of ghetto in the further direction.

My friend got pistol whipped while walking down the street with the Library walking to his car. Many students are up to 2am when they are easy prey. Another friend also had a gun pointed at him while in his car driving down MLK and I've heard numerous other stories. There is a convenience store down the street from the dorms called Time Saver and it was known by everyone as Crime Saver due to the many muggings.

I used to carry a large Spyderco Police knife with me at all times just in case but I was lucky enough, and I always made it a point to walk with my head up, aware of where I was, and with confidence.

[Fallen11]

I applied to Scad for this winter and they rejected me. I know I'm not great, but.....eh. I dunno why I'm telling you this.

[Rkhon]

I heard there was even a student from Tawain who was shot in the head while talking to his mother on a payphone.

[Neil]

I heard there was even a student from Tawain who was shot in the head while talking to his mother on a payphone.

Yes this happened when I was at school there. Was a scary moment for a lot of kids. My friend bought a .45 when he moved to a bad section of the downtown area.

[Rkhon]

I would too, almost old enough to get my permit to carry concealed...which I intend to do. And if I went to school there I would for sure.

[MuffinMan]

Art school is an island. You have only what you take with you. If you suck going in, you will suck coming out.

And I simply don't have any high regard for scad... or art schools in general. I guess its because I've lived 20 minutes from their monopolized, downtown renovating, commercialized, 'hot topic employee' looking base of command for 20 years.

In high school I became elidgable for a scholarship. Didn't take long looking into scad that the only thing you brought out of it was a worthless piece of paper with an expensive name on it for your next job app. Plus my sister went and after a year quit because she was actually a good artist. She felt like they were trying to intentionally 'dumb her down'.

Don't get me wrong; great graphic arts/computer arts programs, but seriously... as far as painting/drawing goes: a shitfest of crap. Anyone who goes there for traditional art is most likely more professional at sucking then Jenna Jameson. Oh, and the 'professors'... biggest self righteous dicks on the planet. Oh, wait, that goes for ALL the staff/student body. The prerequisite for teaching at scad is the ability to gab a bunch of rhetoric nonsense and looking somewhat emo-fashioned with the little soul-patch.

Georgia weather gets to be over a hundred degrees in 98.9% humidity by the way. And, no, Georgia doesn't suck unless you're an uncultured boob that hasn't seen anything but Savannah and Atlanta.

i understand what you mean, CCS (college for creative studies) is actually a shitty college that happens to be close to my house. the classes there aren't always good. last time i had a class, it sucked. this was a class in game design basics. we used 3ds max and photoshop. this class utterly sucked big time and wasted my money, becuase the teacher new shit about game development and was an ex-3ds max dealer. he didn't even know what were pixel shading, vertex shading, normal maps, and direct x. i even knew more about some things in the programs. he didn't even know how to do rigging and skeletal animation. i just ended up being the dude in the class who knew everything and people would ask me rather than ask the teacher. i was pretty far ahead. so i kinda don't want to take a class ever again and rather just teach myself and communicate with you guys.

[AmishCommy]

Neil- Norris is now the sequential art building. yep we finaly got one. they moved the comPOOter department even further in the ghetto to past 50th street where the stables for the aquestrian team used to be. it is however, a really cool building with lots of exposed brick and pipes.

that asian kid that was shot in the good part of town i heard from people that in reality it was a drug deal gone wrong. SCAD just trying to cover it up. True story: i was watching local news the night that happened and they all anounced that when they get back from commercial they'll tell about the kid that was shot, then they came back they showed a bunch of cute puppies and there was no mention of the shooting thereafter.

My experience with crime was really wierd. i was always out at all hours of the night. and i was never robbed or anything. and i lived in the ghetto for 2 years. (on the edge of the ghetto behind Kroger to be exact--ah the Penthouse how i miss you so.) my bike was stolen that's about it. but i came back the summer after i gradumakated to try to wrestle my diploma from the SCAD nazis (seperate story in itself) so i was heading out to steal a desk from the Product Design building (hehe) and this dude tried to rob me in the middle of Abercorn and Jones with a ton of people around. I got out of it by almost running the dude over. hehe i got lucky.

[MuffinMan]

with all these stories i'm reading, this makes SCAD sound like an evil college.
what ind of bastard would try to cover up that shit? it's like the government covering up illegal experiments gone wrong.

[Neil]

Ahhh so Sequential finally got their own building, unfortunately it had to be that rickety old one. I hated that building always! I knew about the 3D building moving, my uncle is a professor in Furniture Design at SCAD and every now and then will keep me up on some of the stuff.

About the asian kid, didn't know that. SCAD did cover a lot of stuff, most schools probably do, you got to paint a pretty picture or else your enrollment drops.

AmishCommy, you lived behind Kroger? I forget people's names from school, it's been so long, even my friends names I start to forget. You didn't happen to know a Tony (2d animation), him and his friend used to throw parties at a house right behind Kroger, house with a guesthouse in the backyard. Damn I can't remember the kid's name, he was the doorman at B&B Billiards. God my memory sucks.

My friend that bought the gun (Bryan) lived on the street on the side of kroger, but it's funny how that town is because my other friend was a few streets down and it was a really nice neighborhood.

[AmishCommy]

ah the party house. hehe. you know it was condemed after the 2002 holoween party. I lived across the street in a nasty pink building, on the third floor. I have a lot of friends in the 3-D department. one of my roomates was MonkeyBoy. The other was Sammy Martinez (big balck puerto rican with a fro.) my best friends were Mike Ambrogi (first year roommate in O-house) and my current roommate and now brother-in-law Aviv Arad. maybe you know them.


MuffinMan- the bastard is president Paula Rowan she usurped power from her ex husband which she devorced after she startes fucking som guy ten years younger. she got the college and Richard Rowan went to become a hermit or something. The reason they cover shit up is to have a good image. and savannah is in their pocket because they rurned the city form a ghetto to a tourist hotspot. plus they bring in rich studenst with a lot of disposable income. but theyve always been shady. they cover up professor and student decent. the shut down a site called SCADcpr because it had testimonials from students, professors and staff about the sady things the college does. in the early 90's the covered up a string of suicides by students and proffesors that may have been caused by asbestos or something worce in the main buildiing that is on their logo. there are stories of proffesor intinidation. lots of shadyness goes on there

[Neil]

ah the party house. hehe. you know it was condemed after the 2002 holoween party. I lived across the street in a nasty pink building, on the third floor. I have a lot of friends in the 3-D department. one of my roomates was MonkeyBoy. The other was Sammy Martinez (big balck puerto rican with a fro.) my best friends were Mike Ambrogi (first year roommate in O-house) and my current roommate and now brother-in-law Aviv Arad. maybe you know them.


Wow didn't know that, I actually left Savannah around November of 2001.

I remember monkeyboy, haha, the guy was in one of my multimedia classes. You can't forget anyone with that name. I also remember sammy I think. I was funneled between weston and dyson for a couple years then finally moved out to the islands.

I wish I kept in touch with some of the people, kinda curious what everyone is up to but I left in a hurry and everything kinda got misplaced.

[poopinmymouth]

monkey boy works on the american army game. he is a cool dude. ill tell him yall are talking about him behind his back. 8-)

[AmishCommy]

poopinmymouth - monkey got the sweetest job strait out school. He models and textures army shit and goes out to play with the weapons and paintballing. He's in monkey heaven.

[stalecracker]

Art school is an island. You have only what you take with you. If you suck going in, you will suck coming out.

Well, actually...
if your attitude sucks going in then you will suck coming out. I went to the Masters program for Illo at SCAD and met some of greatest people there and was taught by one of the best (in my opinion) Artist Anatomy Profs alive, Zdislaw Sikora. That little bastard knows his shit and will stuff your head with enough artistic vision than you can stand. Sure, the place had it's dipshits, but what place doesn't? It honestly sounds to me like you were or are one of those types who "can't be taught" by anyone... if I'm wrong, I apologize...

but your remarks were really dickish.

And NO, I'm not calling YOU a dick. Just them remarks.

[AmishCommy]

i started a CA member SCAD reunion (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=335256#post335256) thread in the Lounge section. this is waht its all about:

I noticed in recent posts that a bunch of us here on CA have gone, are going to, or are planning to go to SCAD. Like it or Hate it SCAD is deffinetly an experience.
So in my nostalgia for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly i envite all Allumni, Current Students, and all those considering going to SCAD to join in a massive digital reunion. Hey you never know, you and I and others on this site may have crossed paths at one point in Savannah. Let this be our gathering place to keep up with each other and see what everyone has been up to.