So I attend an art college here in Canada called ACAD (Alberta College of Art and Design). It's one of the larger art colleges in western canada and basically was my only choice when picking a post-secondary institute, because I live in the city where it is. I didn't (and still do not) have the funds to attend school out of city, as res is pricey as hell on top of tuition fees, food, supplies, etc etc. For this reason (and a few others) I chose to stay with my family in Calgary and go through the character design program at ACAD.

I've been going to ACAD for three years now, spending two years completing 1st year studies and now a full year doing 2nd year. I haven't been extremely pleased with the curriculum, as it's very geared towards design (posters, type, deritive logo design, etc) not what I'm actually there to learn, which is character design. This has been frustrating for me and I've often felt held back and dragged down by some of the irrelevant and dated projects. I understand that being well rounded is a huge plus, and knowing how to branch out and be broad in your knowledge will simply give you the opportunity to get more work than if you were a one-trick pony. However, there is a limit to how much paper cutting, ink guash and other old methods should be implemented and enforced into the school. I don't have an issue with learning about, and leaning HOW to do the old ways, but having to focus on it for nearly an entire year seems completely excessive.

This however, is the least of my worries. Actually, I'm not that worried, per say, as I am angry with ACAD. Our class is one of three classes in the design department. A-block, B-block and C-block. I'm part of A-block, and it seems that our class has been screwed over more times than I can count. In the first semester we were forced to take a class that was supposedly there to teach us about Digital Programs, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This teacher was a complete joke, and not only did most of the students not learn anything from him and pointless lectures, but I ended up teaching most of the class how to use the programs. I am very versed in Photoshop, and I know somewhat about illustrator, but InDesign is basically a mystery to me. I spent upward of $300 on this course (as all my classmates did) and I feel like I've been cheated and robbed and stolen from. Those hours of my life (every friday for SIX HOURS) are never coming back ands I have abosolutly dick all to show for it. The other two classes (c-block and b-block) had great teachers, who went through the tools and menus and show examples and walked about giving advice and asking questions. Even our projects were dumbed down useless versions of what the other classes got. We wrote letters to the school with no action, and we all feel that we should get some kind of compensation for this blatant slap in the face. We are here to learn, and we have not learned what we need to. We're all going to be behind next year when it will be expected of us to know this information. We PAYED for this knowledge, and there was absolutely NOTHING done to help us recover or catch up.

That was last semester. There were other teachers that our class didn't care for, that screwed us over in certain projects (in one instance we finish an assignment, another teacher came around and actually told our teacher to LOWER our marks, because we hadn't followed the assignment guidelines correctly. This wasn't fair to us because we were told very specific instructions from our prof, that was different from the other two classes. We followed these instructions and were then punished for it). But overall, our experience as the other two classes were vaguely similar in workload and teaching.

This semester has been much more of a disappointment. I am paying money to get an education, to be pushed and to improve, and so far I feel like they've given me nothing in return. Our facilities are crap; rooms are small and cramped, dirty, cold or BOILING hot, dusty, terrible lighting, uncomfortable seating and inefficient work spaces. We have a single ancient light table per room (three in all) and a whopping total of ONE photocopier and printer for all 90 students in the design program. This machine is constantly breaking down and failing to be repaired for days on end. I've been overall really displeased with the repair of the school and the upkeep of their facilities. This is part of the reason I pay to go to school, and they don't even have a convenient effective scanner (the only ones being one floor down in the public computer lab area, which has about 20 computers and half as many scanners). I have more supplies and workable space at my home, where I have no bed room to myself (i share with my sister and have to leave the room if she wants to sleep before me, which is every single night) or a room (or table) designated to working on projects. This is pretty pathetic.

This semester we've been screwed pretty badly, yet again. One of our teachers has not been giving us instruction required to understand our projects. We don't know what we're supposed to be accomplishing and so we are focusing on the wrong skills and during critique (when we hand projects in) classmates are lambasted in front of everyone for not doing the project correctly and told they'll be docked marks because of it. The reason for this I believe is because the teacher in question has not taught our year of students in years, and has recently been reinstated. I don't feel he knows how to teach our level of students anymore and as a result we're being cheated out of weeks of time and hard work. We look at the other two classes and notice a jump in quality, direction and execution. In one of our other major classes our teacher merely seems disinterested and contradiction. One day he'll tell you work in one direction and then the next class, after hours of work at home, he'll tell you do the complete opposite and not give you real reason. Even after asking both of the teachers to articulate what they mean, give us a clear understanding, we're still left confused and wondering what we're supposed to be doing exactly. The other two classes don't seem to have this problem and in fact seem to be improving quite quickly.

It's things like this that make me wonder the fuck I'm paying so much money for, and why I'm even going to this school. They keep telling us there will be improvements but I have a feeling they won't happen till after I graduate.

I don't want to discourage anyone who is planning on attending ACAD, or currently attending, but I feel it's important for them to know the 'risks' that come with attending this school. As I mentioned before, the other two classes are having a successful time. It seems that just our class is being messed with and punished for following incorrect instruction. I speak for our entire class when I say I'm frustrated as hell.