<p>I was thinking about attending the SMFA pre college program and was wondering if anyone had attended in previous years? The website does not have a very detailed daily schedule and I was wondering if anyone could fill me in on that… things like how big are the classes, how long do we focus on each medium, and how much emphasis is placed on portfolio building?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>I don’t know if you still want information (since it’s been almost a year since your post) but in case you were still interested in hearing about it…</p>
<p>I did the program summer of 2011, and I loved it.
There were 88 students that year, and 44 stayed the whole five weeks (44 left after three, it was a bit of an odd adjustment when half of the group left)</p>
<p>There was a really complicated rotation pattern of classes (it takes a while to explain, but it was easy to pick up)
We had
2D: Drawign, Painting, Printmaking
3D/4D: Sculpture/installation and Performance
Dig: Digital Photography and video art</p>
<p>I know that I always woke up around 7:30 which was fairly early. Most people got to breakfast around 8:15 i think. And we ate breakfast and had a half hour morning meeting (which often involved the RA’s leading aerobics or yoga or random games liek pictionary and sharks and minnows). We had two classes each day. And sometimes we also had TA presentations, or visits from working artists, or field trips (these were always in the afternoon before dinner and after class. After dinner we had a lot of free time to work on art, and we could stay at the school until 10 or 11 depending on the day of the week. We had to check into the building at 10 or 11 (again, depending) and had a room check at like 11 or twelve. We were allowed to go out into boston during free time as long as we got back on time and told one of the RAs where we were going. </p>
<p>We always had field tips on the weekends, to museums or the beach, and once to the esplanade for fourth of july fireworks. </p>
<p>In terms of how long you focus on each medium, you get equal focus on each of the three categories (2D, 3D, and dig). We probably had about 6-8 hours of class in each of those a wekk, but there were more 2D classes (3 instead of 2) so you didn’t get much time in each of those classes, which disappointed me a bit.<br>
The individual classes came out to be like ten-twelve people each. </p>
<p>There’s not so much portfolio building emphasis. There’s not so much of a very demanding set of assignments for the classes, and you’re expected to work more independently than some other programs… so I’d say that A lot of the focus of the program is on being immersed in art and seeing what you personally can create under that influence. Its a very… conceptual type of place. There’s a lot of the “what is art” “what does it mean to make art” consideration, and I didn’t see a single teacher who was ever very picky abotu technique unless they were invited to be very critical of a piece by a student.</p>