#profinding

FOUNDATION YEAR

For your freshman year/foundation year, you take three assigned studios and two assigned liberals. The studios are Design (which for some teachers is more of a freestyle class, but it’s supposed to teach you to think about your work as well as color, composition etc), Drawing (where you will drown in charcoal. Here you do figure drawing (yay! Naked people!) and perspective), and 3D (name was changed to “spacial dynamics” by the dreaded Gareth Jones, but here you just work in 3D. Some teachers want you to explore form more, some will want you to explore materials). These three classes go from I think 8 or 8:30 am till 5 or 5:30 pm with a break for lunch (yeah…they’re loooong). They meet once a week. For these studios you have a “section” meaning you have the same classmates for all three classes (my first section was about 20 people…we ended up all getting along really well, but that’s certainly not the case for everyone). Your section and teachers change in the Spring semester, but you take the same three studios. You’re assigned an art history class and an english class your first semester. I think you get to choose from a selection in your second semester, but I could be wrong. In between the semesters you have winter break and then Wintersession, which runs from January till the beginning of February. For this you take a five-week class (or two if you want, but 2 is the max) in any major you want. They can be liberal or studio. They meet 2 or three times a week. Foundation students get to register first and are urged to take classes in majors they’re interested in (for example, if you’re trying to pick between becoming a Sculpture major or a Industrial Design major, you can take one studio in each). 

SOPHOMORE YEAR (for illustration majors!!)

Welcome to Illustration! You no longer have sections or assigned liberals, but you DO still have assigned studios. These studios take place in the ISB (illustration studies building) and are Drawing (pretty much the same as what you did last year, but taught by illustration teachers. You will also get to work in materials other than charcoal (maybe)), Painting (probably you’ll be working in oils and painting set ups and/or nude models), and Concepts (concepts is sort of your first ILLUSTRATION class! Like Design, it’s teaching you how to “think,” how to come up with a good idea and then communicate that idea effectively through your work). These classes run from 1:10 till 6:10 with a small break (except Wednesday studios, which run from 11:20 am till 4:20 pm) You now pick your own liberal arts classes. They generally meet for 3 hours once a week or 1 and a half hours twice a week. You still have wintersession, but now you get da-dada-DA! LAST REGISTRATION!! WOOOOO!! (that is a joke. This is bad)

Also, in general, classes either work in a Critique or In-Class Work format. For Concepts, we do all the work at home, bring it to class and then sit for a full class of critique before receiving our next assignment. For Drawing and Painting, we will critique the homework in class, but most of the class time is devoted to working (painting or drawing from the model). There’s obviously some mixing and matching of these, and a lot of classes have lectures built in, but it’s a simple way to explain how class is structured. 

JUNIOR YEAR

Finally you get to pick your own studios! You’re required to take a studio that fits the computer literacy credit and one additional concepts credit, but that can be any time from Junior to Senior year. You also get the chance this year to take an ISP (an Independent Study Project) or a CSP (a Collaborative Study Project). You have to apply for this through a teacher in sophomore year. These are for if you want to do a specific project, either on your own or with a small group, that you wouldn’t be able to do as in depth in a class. You can do one as a studio or as a liberal arts (I think you can do a liberal arts one in sophomore year actually). You again get to pick your own liberals (which have requirements of their own). This year you have “Junior Review” which is one day in the spring. You put your work up and a random selection of Illustration professors come critique it. They’re supposed to make sure you’re heading in the right direction, picking classes that are helpful for you, etc. For wintersession this year you may think you get third registration…nope! The transfer students get to go before you, so now you get to register second to last.

SENIOR YEAR

Aaaah Senior year. The year of screaming. Again, you get to pick your own studios and liberals (but now you have to make sure you have all the required credits to graduate)! Each major gets their own show in the Woods Gerry gallery their senior year. All students are encouraged to submit a piece (you matte/frame/prep it yourself). Illustration students also get a more personal group show. Each group (max 11 people) puts up a show of all their work in the Illustration gallery. After the opening night (where they are expected to provide music and refreshments) the show is up for a week before the group takes it down and cleans up the gallery for the next group. There’s one show a week starting in March and ending before finals. You now have second pick for wintersession registration (now’s the time to pull the “this is my last chance to take this class!!” card). 

That’s what I have very technically of what happens each year with your classes…if anything confused you, please ask (at your own risk considering how much I fucking talk oh my God). 

NOW ABOUT THE SCHOOL IN GENERAL!! I’ve divided this up intopros and cons I found about the school that I think are helpful for anyprospective freshman to know (the pros and cons aren’t necessarily directly related to each other either). 

PRO—CONNECTIONS RISD has sooo many connections. Depending on whatyou want to go into, there might very well be RISD alumni already there. Theprofessors are also practicing artists, so many of them have currentconnections to fellow artists. For example, a past professor of mine passed myart on to his own editor, who really liked it and invited me to have lunch withhim. A lot of the RISD professors are really cool too, so I left with goodrelationships with many of them. A different professor just e-mailed the nameof an alum I should connect with, even though I’ve already graduated and I’mnot her student anymore. We also have something called the Design Review andthe Fine Arts Review where tons of companies come to have short portfolioreviews with students. Especially after graduation, I’ve realized howincredibly important these connections are. It’s really hard to get someone’sattention when you’re coming at them out of nowhere. Having a mutualacquaintance or even something as simple as coming from the same school isextremely helpful.  

 CON—COST RISD is money-grubbing. It is INCREDIBLY expensive.Tuition alone is around $23,000 a semester. My freshman year room and board was$6,000 a semester. The price has gone up since then too. While I do get helpfrom scholarships, those depend on the student, so it’s probably highlyvariable. For the most part we have to buy our own school supplies too, whichadds up. A lot of the fun classes I’ll mention have lab fees too. If you planto go to RISD I think you should know for sure what you want to do, since it’squite a risk to spend that much money on something you’re on the fence about.And of course, I put this early because this con is something that makes RISDimpossible for a lot of people…

PRO—RESOURCES RISD has a lot of resources for students to use. Wehave a fantastic library that mostly houses art books/books about art. We havea picture library to help you collect references for drawings. We have amaterial resource center which is basically a library for materials where youcan see what kind of fabric/glass/stone/wood etc. might be best for yourproject. We have the Special Collections, which holds original artist books,out of print art books, etc. We have the Nature Lab, which is full ofskeletons, taxidermied animals, plants, insects, shells, microscopes and a fewlive animals too (including jellyfish, and lizards). We have laser cutters,plotters (nice big printers), woodshops, computer labs, sound booths etc. TheRISD 3D store will cut materials for you (for a fee) and the store employees ingeneral are very knowledgeable. The RISD museum is free to students and alwayshas really cool stuff on display. If you know what you’re looking for and ask,they’ll even let you look through collections they don’t have on exhibit. Wealso have access to Brown University’s libraries as well. I wish I had moretime to take advantage of all of these resources actually, since I might nothave a lot of those ever again.

CON—RISD MENTALITY The RISD mentality is real and it’s terrible. Sobad to the point that if you have major depression or anxiety I might evendissuade you from going there. Rather, I’m not saying that if you have a mentalillness you shouldn’t go to RISD at all; I’m saying you have to behyper-vigilant to not get sucked into the toxic RISD mentality. RISD advertisestheir foundation year as being really tough so as to “weed out” the people who“can’t handle it.” All this really does is make people who aren’t happy therefeel bad about transferring or dropping out. If you are unhappy at a college you do not have to be there. Rememberyou are paying for an education. A lot of what happens is that students arepraised for neglecting their basic self-care in favor of their homework. Kidsput in a lot more work than is necessary into a project and start a cycle ofeveryone trying to outdo each other. I’m not going to lie; RISD sets the barhigh which is important for growth. But I think it often gets set far higherthan is healthy for the students. I’ve literally been told by a professor“You’re only special if your art is special,” which is bullshit. This is hardfor an artist to change, but I can’t say it enough; DO NOT PLACE YOURSELF-WORTH IN YOUR ARTWORK. You’ll see fellow students at RISD who are far moreskilled than you. You’ll see underclassmen at RISD who are far more skilledthan you. Doesn’t mean you’re not good at art. Doesn’t mean you’re worth lessas a person either. One of the most important things a professor has said to meis this: “You aren’t going to art school because you’re good at art. You’re going to art school to improve your art.” Whoops, this one kind of turned into a rantaimed towards artists in general…the point is, it is very easy to be eaten away by stress at RISD, and you’ll be toldyou’re doing it right if you are.

PRO—ARTIST TALKS We have a lot of cool alums and other artistscoming to give artist talks. You can hear directly from artists working in thefields you’re interested in. During their talks they often go over their careerpaths. Sometimes they start somewhere completely different from where they arenow. Sometimes they get where they want to be immediately. Sometimes theyflounder for a long time before they “make it.” It’s really helpful to heartheir path and process!

CON—NOT DIVERSE This is a problem among schools all across America,but there is a lack of diversity at RISD. We have a lot of white students and asmaller number of East Asian students, but after those two groups the numbersfall drastically. The staff is mostly white too. Currently, this is a hot topicat RISD. Protests and talks have been going on throughout the semester. Ifyou’re interested, you can read about them here and here.

PRO—FUN CLASSES… A lot of the classes are really fun. Fromshoemaking study abroad courses in Europe to Pen, Ink and Scratchboard toclasses that mix robotics and programming with performance art. This issomething that really drew me to RISD…it’s pretty hard to choose what to take. There were a lot of teachers I loved too. It was great to find professors who I could talk to easily or had the same interests as I do: I would often try to take multiple classes with them.

CON—THAT ARE ALL FULL The fun classes are very hard to get into,and if you’re from a different major, then it’s near impossible. For example, Iso badly wanted to take glassblowing while I was at RISD, but as anIllustration student I had to wait for all the Glass students to register for classesbefore I could try…and of course, it was full every time. In the end, a lot ofstudents get stuck with classes they don’t care about a lot of the time. Itgets pretty frustrating, especially for the price of the school.

PRO—BROAD EDUCATION… Because we have a foundation year and a focuson liberal arts, students get a broad education and get to mingle with peoplewith different skill sets. I think it was really helpful and important. You canalso take courses at Brown, if you want to (though scheduling is a pain).

 CON—BUT NOT THAT BROAD At least with Illustration we have TWO yearsof foundation, the second one within the illustration department and specificto skillsets needed in illustration. This is pretty frustrating when youalready know what kind of thing you want to be doing, especially when you getinto Junior year and realize that you still might not have gotten the trainingyou needed. In addition, that focus on liberal arts that seemed like such agood deal in the beginning starts to become a hassle. People often put offtheir liberal arts homework and skip class in favor of their studio work, whichisn’t fair for the Liberal Arts professors at all. RISD argues that the liberalarts classes help broaden their students’ perspective, but so many of therequired liberals are art history (which fills me with rage). They offer veryfew science and no math courses as well, so even though you might have a broadrange of interest in non-art subjects, I could hardly say it will be nurtured.

PRO—PROVIDENCE This could bea pro or a con, but I personally really liked Providence. It’s a cool city witha long history. It’s by water, which is nice (however polluted). The hill is abitch, but the view is great. I’ve talked to people who have found itsuffocatingly small but also people who found it too big, so I think it justdepends on where you’re from. RISD students get free access to the Rhode Islandpublic bus too, which is incredibly helpful.

 CON—STUBBORN It’s hard to get big things changed at RISD and a hugepart of that is that the staff and administration at RISD are at odds. Theyhave some kind of blood feud that’s been going on for 30+ years. A professoronce explained to us that nothing gets done in the end, because of their maincontract. Everyone is afraid to change it because they’re worried if they do itwill give the other side power to change things too. The point is that a lot ofcomplaints about RISD seem to fall on deaf ears.

Those are the big take-aways I have about RISD. Like I said, I complain about it all the time, but I did get a lot out of it. I could write more, but it may kill us both…so like I said, if anyone has any other questions, please ask! I’m always happy to talk about RISD! Also, no question is stupid (I’ve already graduated, so some things may be obvious to me, but not so obvious to a high schooler). 

From @willoghby

All very true. Would also add a ’pro’ that it’s a large art school, so it has more club/sport/charity opportunities than most other art schools. Seems trivial, but it makes a difference if you’re a social person.

From @merzkydevotchka

Just graduated from RISD. I agree with a lot of this. Though I gotta say, your experience will also be greatly influenced by who you choose to hang out with and your major. I had a great group of friends and was in FAV. I barely ever saw any drama the whole 4 years I was there. This will obvs help with stress levels lol. Also, I have anxiety/depression and I made it thru foundation year with only one all-nighter and I had Clara Lieu’s notoriously hard drawing class.

(Emiett adding to this: I will say that time management is one of the most important things you can have in life. I managed fine first semester and only had to pull one all-nighter. But then I stopped managing my time as well and never really got back to a good schedule. Something to be wary of.) I also know people who had a lot of time at RISD ruined by the people they associated with. Remember why you’re at college! You’re not there to deal with other peoples’ shit!

From @gwenspiders​