<p>My daughter, currently a freshman illustration major at MICA, is considering transferring to Washington University in St. Louis, for their Visual Communications program. She’s VERY happy with the quality of the program at MICA but is yearning for a more diverse group of students and a little more academic variety.</p>
<p>Anyone have any experiences with the WUSTL program that they’d be willing to share?</p>
<p>MY daughter initially expressed interest in Wash U because she too didn’t want to just associate with art majors. She ended up going somewhere else ( University of Cincinnati). Thus, what I will say is from a parent who looked into their program and NOT from a student. I just wanted to make this clear from the outset.</p>
<p>Be advised: Wash U’s program is VERY different from what your daughter is getting at MICA in several ways: </p>
<p>First, Wash U had two years of foundation, at least that was their program two years ago.</p>
<p>Secondly, there were a LOT fewer courses in Communication/Graphic Design than that offered at MICA. The reason was that WASH U really wants kids to double major. Thus, your daughter probably won’t get nearly the same in-depth training in Communication Design that she would have gotten at MICA. I only found this out accidentally when I complained to an admission officer at Wash U about their paultry offerings in design. If you check out their course offerings, you will see this for yourself. It is somewhat of a secret.</p>
<p>In return, however, she will get more broad based art training and can take a major in some other area. </p>
<p>I guess you have to weigh the pros and cons of what I have presented here and see if it fits her needs. One possible alternative is to take courses at Hopkins,which your daughter can do and study in their library.</p>
<p>This is Laura. Hi Dad!</p>
<p>Just in case you didn’t see my comment on the Wash U thread, here it is again:</p>
<p>My son is sophomore in the ViCom program, majoring in illustration. I have seen his work. I have seen some of the work of his classmates. All of it is first class. Whether it is comparable to the work produced by RISD or MICA sophomores I have no idea. Here, however, is what I can tell you about WashU:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>WashU is an Ivy caliber university, comparable to Cornell, Brown, or Dartmouth. It is academically rigorous, and the kids there are very, very smart. Academically, it beats the pants off of any art school, and offers a range of courses and academic specialties that no art school can match.</p></li>
<li><p>The new Art School building is only two years old and the facilities are superb. I haven’t seen the facilities at either RISD or MICA, but I’ve seen the facilities at the Syracuse University School of Art and Design, and the facilities at WashU are better.</p></li>
<li><p>The WashU School of Art is very selective and consequently relatively small. The professors really get to know the kids and the kids, the professors. Better yet, the professors really care about the kids and their work. In general, this is a hallmark of WashU. The professors and the administration really do care about the kids.</p></li>
<li><p>As NorthEastMom2 implies, kids can pursue most of their major interests at WashU with almost no friction from the administration. My son is majoring in illustration in the School of Art and majoring in English (Creative Writing) in the School of Arts and Sciences, and has been considering a minor in History or Philosophy. This is not uncommon. Lots of kids double major. Lots of kids do a major and a minor, or a major and double minor, or a double major and a minor. Generally, whatever you want to study, the university says go for it.</p></li>
<li><p>Unlike an art school, WashU is full of kids with very diverse interests. For example, my son’s girl friend is a biomedical engineering major. One of his roommates is a film major. The other roommate is a chemical engineering major, and his girl friend is a primatology major. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’ll conclude by saying that my son chose WashU because he was looking for a school that had challenging academics, a high-quality art school, and would let him pursue his interests - no - that would encourage him to pursue his interests, where ever they led. WashU certainly fit the bill.</p>
<p>Amptron2x and others: No one is denying the quality of the offerings at Wash U. Heck, I think Wash U is actually better in quality, dorms, and other factors than most ivys! My cousin is an alumni from there, keeps raving about the school; however, that isn’t the point.</p>
<p>Their art offerings in design and other areas, however, are rather paltry. They maybe good as far as they go, but they are limited because Wash U wants kids to be more broad based with multiple majors. Even in art, they had ( as of two years ago) two years of basic foundation courses, which maybe great if you want broad based art training.</p>
<p>The problem with this is that art and design are very competitive areas. Having more courses ,particularly in design, should provide better training in the area than have a lot fewer courses. Moreover, Wash U’s spartan offerings don’t even give the kids a choice. </p>
<p>I would think that the school would be ideal for those kids that want broad based art training, some training in a particular artistic discipline and access to other areas of interest because of their diverse interests.</p>
<p>I certainly can also see kids wanting to go to Wash U in order to meet kids in other disciplines. My daughter didnt’ want to just associate with only other art students,which is why she didn’t attend a stand alone art school. </p>
<p>I should note that this was based on my review of the program several years ago. Maybe their offerings have increased since I evaluated the art program.</p>
<p>I spoke to my son about the Wash U VisCom program and asked him whether he knew any one in the program who had transferred in from an art school. He said a friend of his had transferred into the VisCom program from RISD for the same reason that Laura’sDad’s daughter had cited. She said that the level of instruction and training at Wash U was at least as good as that at RISD, and that she liked Wash U better because of the wider range of academic opportunities.</p>
<p>A few words about the VisCom program at Wash U:</p>
<p>As taxguy pointed out, the core or foundation program at Wash U is spread out over two years. However, the kinds of courses and the number of credits (24) in the core program are identical to that of MICA’s foundation program. The same holds true for the art history requirements. The reason the core program is spread out over two years is to allow the students to also take courses that meet the school’s general academic requirements.</p>
<p>Wash U does offer fewer design and Viscom courses, but the lesser number is misleading. Rather than offering a larger number of individual courses that focus on specific topics within Viscom, it offers single, year appropriate courses that focus on a large number of topics in succession. For example, next year my son is taking the first of two Junior level VisCom courses in his Fall semester. It’s an eight credit course that meets three times a week from 9:00 to 4:00 and covers typography, image creation and editing, sequential design, messaging, publication design, basic art direction, motion studies and the major computer applications used in the industry. In his senior year, he’ll take another set of 8 credit courses that focus on his specific Viscom interest, either Advertising Design, Graphic Design, or Illustration. Wash U also offers a substantial number of studio elective courses, and requires BFA students to take 15 hours of studio electives and another 8 hours of art or academic electives.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: The Wash U BFA art program is not, as far as I can tell, designed to provide only broad based training in the arts with a cursory dip into one specialty or another. It is, instead, high quality, focused and professionally oriented. It requires, at a minimum, 75 hours of studio art credits and 15 hours of art history credits. It also requires an additional 8 hours of art or academic electives. If a student chooses to take those 8 hours in studio art, he or she can graduate with 83 studio art credits (comparable to MICA’s requirement of 84). In short, the Wash U program is for kids whose aim is to become professional artists.</p>
<p>For more detailed info about the VisCom program, here’s a link to the Wash U page that describes the program requirements: <a href=“http://art.wustl.edu/userfiles/File//BFA%20Degree%20Requirements.pdf[/url]”>http://art.wustl.edu/userfiles/File//BFA%20Degree%20Requirements.pdf</a></p>
<p>And here’s a link to the page where you can see a list of art courses that Wash U offers: <a href=“http://courses.wustl.edu/[/url]”>http://courses.wustl.edu/</a></p>
<p>To use this website:
<p>amptron2x, thank you for showing how to access course offerings. I always had a hard time with that.</p>
<p>I still stand by my prior posts. It shows for fall semester exactly ONe web page for ALL art electives. In Spring, they also had one web page but with a full one third devoted to independent study. If you compare this to either RISD, MICA or University of Cincinnati you will see many, many more art elective offered. That is NOT to say that WASH U doesn’t offer top quality, intensive courses because I believe that they do. However, there is no question, based on sheer number of courses offered and studio hours required, there is a huge difference. This can also be shown by the fact that schools akin to RISD don’t allow second majors because of the extreme time requirements of their majors.</p>
<p>Take a look at the RISD offerings, University of Cincinnati DAAP offerings, MICA offerings and compare to the electives at WASH U. It is a HUGE difference.</p>
<p>For example, I went into the DAAP ( University of Cincinnati) offerings for art and design. If I subtract out all of the architecture,interior design, and foudation courses, there are still 40-50 pages of offerings vs. 2 at Wash U (fall and spring)! RISD and MICA have at least as much as UC too and probably more.</p>
<p>By the way, I do agree that your foundation program at least equals that of any other art school in terms of offerings and quality.</p>
<p>See [Course</a> Descriptions, University of Cincinnati](<a href=“http://www.uc.edu/courses/]Course”>http://www.uc.edu/courses/)</p>
<p>Instructions: click on school of design, art, architecture and planning.</p>
<p>RISD had 37 Non- grad courses in graphic design and 15 in apparal design. Count up the electives at WASH U. Moreover RISD has a minimester where kids take an extra two courses each year,which adds to the studio requirements. I also didn’t count the graduate courses offered at RISD that kids can take.</p>
<p>Bottom line: I am NOT demeaning the quality of Wash U. I think it is a fabulous school in many ways! I don’t think, however, that you get the same amount of art and design elective offerings that you would get at most other well-known art programs.</p>