- Network as much as humanly possible, and take advantage of as many opportunities as you can handle. Kansas City has a really excellent arts community full of wonderful, skillful people, so talk to them!! The community is extremely friendly and open, so don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

- Explore outside of your major. Take electives in other departments! Illustration is a pretty straightforward, no-bullshit approach to image-making, so if you’re at all interested in fine arts or even just having a more conceptual basis for your work, definitely look for electives in Painting or Ceramics. Hell, do Major Plus and spend a semester in a different department, if you’re feelin’ it! Illustration is in its own little building away from the main campus, so it’s easy to be disconnected from other majors, or to fall into the weird fine-arts-vs-design-majors segregation thing that happens, but the more variety you have in your influences & friend groups, the more wide a net you can cast when it comes to learning new stuff. Shit, just do as much stuff outside of school itself as you can, there’s tons of cool stuff to do and discover in KC.

- Take care of yourself. The school will try to make you into an art machine, and unfortunately KCAI is notoriously awful at accommodating its students’ mental health struggles. Do not allow yourself to be pressured into foregoing sleep or meals or self-care in order to do your schoolwork. (Honestly there’s been a pretty intense amount of pushback against this in recent years in my department, so hopefully things will improve if folks continue standing up for themselves.) If nothing else, when you’re tired/hungry/sick/sad, you’re not going to be able to work effectively.

- Be nice to your classmates. You will definitely have classmates who are shitty or rude or just bad at art, and you’ll have to deal with them, because the school is pretty small. It’s always useful to look for excuses to get along with people. Build friendships with people who will give you 0 bullshit (especially in critique) and have a gossip sesh over some beers every now and again. Just don’t be petty or hold other peoples’ basic human shortcomings against them.

- Wring as much good as you can out of everything, especially the bad experiences. Don’t get your knickers in a twist in critique, remember that every negative thing somebody says about the stuff you make is an opportunity to get better at what you do. If you have a teacher you hate, then just use them as a tool and wring as much knowledge out of them as you can and then never talk to them again. That might sound manipulative, but school exists for your benefit, so make it bend to serve you.

- Do stuff that you love, even if it’s weird. Illustration is extremely open to different media and methods, so really, try out everything that seems like it’d be cool. One of the current sophomores has started doing body painting & photography for pretty much every assignment. One of my classmates’ thesis project was to build an 8-ish-foot-tall, wearable gryphon puppet/costume (it looks amazing). Another made art dolls out of sculpey and fabric for her thesis. The Illustration building has a letterpress, a spray booth, a four-color screenprinting arm, and the department head is a carpenter. Use these resources as much as you can, because you won’t have access to them after graduation!! Just, whatever you do, don’t be boring. Do stuff that’s fun, but also critically examine your own taste level and always be looking for exciting new influences.

- Practice discipline. Discipline is just building good habits that work for you. I have pretty awful anxiety about working, I’m super self-critical, and I procrastinate like a monster, so I’ve had to do a lot of trial-and-error to try and work around those quirks while also accepting that, to some extent, they’re a part of me and not something I should try to completely eradicate/just ~muscle through.~ I literally didn’t figure out how to do this until this semester and now I’m graduating on Saturday, so uh, don’t beat yourself up if it takes a while, lol. It’ll be really easy to want to skip classes, sleep in, turn things in late, etc etc– just show up and participate and that’ll get you really far, tbh.

Some other tips/cool shit about KCAI specifically:

- Look for an internship as soon as you get done with freshman year. You don’t have to have more than one internship, but ambitious classmates have had like 3+ internships before they graduate, and they won’t stop being your competition just because they filled their internship requirement lol

- Take summer classes if you can afford it, it’ll help you avoid 18-credit-hour semesters (brutal) or having to take an extra semester (annoying). Pick your studio electives carefully, because you only have room for a couple.

- The old man who lives next door to the Illustration building is very sweet, so be nice to him if you run into him. In general, the neighborhood around the school is not very safe, and we’ve had stints of car break-ins, flashers, and muggings. Don’t let that scare you, but, y’know, be smart if you have to walk somewhere alone or at night. The school has security who can escort you anywhere around campus if you have to walk and they’re around 24/7.

- Cromwell, Rush, and Hal Wert are all notoriously tough/obnoxious liberal arts teachers. Avoid if you can. Fricke is a great teacher but her tests are hard. If you need an easy easy lib arts elective, take Japanese.

- If you’re not from KC, explore the area. Check out Maker Goods, Oracle Fine Curiosities, 39th West, Dr. Sketchy’s. Go to First Fridays and talk to people as much as you can.Go see a show at the Granada in Lawrence. If you like nature, drive out to Lee’s Summit and go hike around the dam at Unity Village (or just the park north of 39th West, if you don’t wanna drive that far). If you like architecture, go drive around Parkville and try not to cry at how cute the buildings there are. If you like coffee, there is so much goddamn coffee and every coffee shop is adorable. Just, really, explore, there’s so much good shit to find.