I’m planning to major in art but I don’t want to take all of the math, english, science, ect. classes. I want to go to college for ART. I know there are art schools that have very few general education requirements but they are extremely expensive. The point is, I want to become an art professor someday and I’m not good at math, science, and english. I’ll be spending hours and hours every night trying to cram in for all the millions of test for my general educations classes for 2-3 years before I can even start taking art. In combination with my job, I’ll have barely any time to draw and my skills will go down dramatically. I don’t know what to do. Either I can find a college with very few/easy gen-eds or find an affordable art school. I’d prefer the colleges to be in wisconsin or minnesota, but other states are still a possibility. Thank you.
Art is, generally, about the human experience and our relationship to each other and our world.
All those things are key to that experience.
You want to do studio art?
I had a relative start at Normandale when she couldn’t afford MCAD. Supposedly their art department is good. Use their tutoring and writing center for help with the gen ed aspects. One on one can really make a difference.
Also take a look at the art department at UW Stout.
Even when doing studio art, it does not happen in a vacuum. You must learn about cultures and art history.
Others will correct me if I am wrong but I think an art PhD is more of an intellectual degree, not a studio art degree. Ultimately you should be aiming for a MFA.
^Moreover, if you want to be an art professor, you are going to need to know the basics of other professions. Some art professors write articles, for example. You’ll definitely have to write things to communicate with others in your field. So English is key. As was stated above, art doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so you need to learn about all of the things surrounding art and why it’s made. Additionally, becoming an art professor is very very competitive. Somewhere along the way you may decide to pursue another career, even temporarily, and those other courses will be important for developing skills that will allow you to work elsewhere.
Even if you go to a college with few general education requirements, most of those colleges will still strongly encourage you to take a wide range of courses across the curriculum. Few if any of them are going to have enough art credits for you to ONLY take art classes. And if you take a balanced courseload, you shouldn’t have to cram frantically.
There used to be a great site somewhere that had a list of schools with a fully open curriculum, a partially open curriculum, etc. but I can’t find it anymore. Anyway, Amherst has a fully open curriculum. So does Brown, and if you are really competitive they have a joint program with RISD that might be ideal for an aspiring artist. Hamilton College has a mostly open curriculum, but there are a few courses in quantitative reasoning and writing that you are required to take. The University of Rochester also has no distribution requirements, although they do require you to take a writing class and a three-course cluster in the two divisional areas you don’t major in (it makes more sense on their website).
Amherst, Brown, and Evergreen State (BA degree) would probably be the most open curriculum colleges.
Many of the other colleges that are sometimes listed as open curriculum effectively do have breadth requirements, such as by limiting the number of credits from any given department or division (e.g. Grinnell and Hamilton). Some schools may have breadth requirements that are less specified, but they are breadth requirements (e.g. Rochester).
However, art does not exist in isolation from subjects like math, science, and English / communication.
Yeah – here are some of the schools with open, or mostly open (learning some math, history, and literature won’t kill you…), curricula:
Amherst
Beloit
Brown
Grinnell
Hamilton
NYU – Gallatin School
Pitzer
Smith
U of Rochester
Wake Forest (but you have to apply – not guaranteed)
Wesleyan (CT)
Not sure how reliable this list is for finding open curriculum schools. It lists St. John’s College, which is the opposite of an open curriculum school (it has a core curriculum that is the entire curriculum).
Yeah, wow, I did some quick research and removed several that clearly aren’t open, or close to it. That site is misleading.
There are also other threads on this site listing and discussing schools with fairly flexible or open curricula.
Obviously check each school you’re interested in, OP, to be certain that it offers what you desire.
I ran out of time to fully edit. Beloit does not have an open curriculum.
If OP strugges with academic subjects, then most of the colleges suggested are going to be out of reach.
OP: what are your academic stats, and how much can you afford to pay?
You may want to look into the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. It’s part of the SUNY system.
The Peck School of the Arts which is part of UWM (UW-Milwaukee) has several BA/BFA programs which do not include work in either English or math. However, some coursework in the humanities (art history), social science, and natural science is still required.
Will you have any AP credits that can count towards gen ed requirements?
My son, who is dyslexic and dyscalculic, is going for a BFA in theater. His program has 9 gen ed classes. He can satisfy one with AP Psych and if he scores high enough in APES and/or US Gov’t, he will satisfy two more. He will take math over the summer at our local CC; as long as he gets a C, he gets the credit and it will be less stressful because I can hire his former math tutor to work with him, which wouldn’t work if he was away at school.
I managed to become a lawyer and have a successful career without taking any math or science in college - I clepped out of the requirements and never regretted it. I did, however, load up on English and history classes.
Kalamazoo College has an open curriculum, requiring only foreign language competency and a senior capstone project. The City of Kalamazoo has a strong fine arts culture, and K College is only a few blocks from the neighborhood with a variety of restored industrial buildings which are repurposed as studio, gallery space etc.
My DS is starting at Kalamazoo College in Michigan in the fall. As @Midwestmomofboys says, it’s a relatively open curriculum. Add to the above, they do require 5 PE classes for graduation 
Very generous with aid, if that’s a concern. Great school, a CTCL, with high acceptance rate due to… I don’t know what. Art major available and the possibility of taking classes at nearby Western Michigan for classes not at K. WM has 25k students, so it’s highly likely you would find classes there that you need to complement your education at K. Good luck!