Squirrel8296

I'm looking at low residency and fully remote MFA programs. A full residency program is not in the cards, nor are the low-residency programs like Bard that require multi-month long in person commitments every year. Radford's Design Thinking program and Clark's new Fine Art MFA programs both piqued my interest and I am drawn to them for different reasons. Radford Design Thinking Aligns better with my current role and industry career trajectory (advertising) More academic/research and writing based Established program that is well enough known Design Thinking is hot right now Fully remote - no in person at all Clark Low Residency MFA More aligned with the direction I want to go (full time arts position) Interdisciplinary creative program Highly individualized It's a new program Faculty I wanted to work with at Lesley moved to start this one 2x 10 day residencies per year which is super doable Thesis exhibition is at Mass MoCA edit: forgot to add. I’ve looked at other programs as well, like the Media Design MFA at Full Sail, but Full Sail feels questionable to me.

So that's what I never got a clear answer about. You have to reapply each year (which seems to be pretty common) and they acted like you should continue to get it but it definitely seemed like they could take it away if they felt like it (or more likely didn't want to continue to fund you). Its not a cheap program either if you lose funding (my tuition waiver was almost 60k by itself). Have you looked at interdisciplinary programs or low residency programs? You could totally do fiber in one of those and while low-residency programs usually don't have much funding, there are tons of funded interdisciplinary programs.

Oh gosh, better you than me. I currently am a manager at a pizza place and I regularly have to supervise 5+ teenagers and honestly that 5 is too many for me. I don't know how anyone can be in a room full of 30 of them and maintain their sanity.

I got into Bloomington last year but ended up turning them down because of cost. Just know that almost half of you ~16k stipend will go to paying your course fees and buying materials. To make it work you will have to go into significant debt to be able to afford to live. And its not like you can adjunct to make ends meet after the first year either since the next nearest school where you can adjunct it over and hour away (one way).

So I applied for 2020 and got in at 1 school for the MFA (and in at 1 for an MA in art history). I ultimately turned down both because the MFA program wasn't a good fit (I only applied for that specific program because my undergraduate mentor encouraged me to) and for the art history program I applied for a dual-degree program but didn't get into the second program. Right now I'm going to take a few years off to try and save up some money and then probably look again and apply. I'm also trying to switch the mediums I focus on so I basically need to build a whole new portfolio. I love art and I love education (my end goal was to teach while also being an artist) but right now I'm also not completely sure how sustainable a path this would be for me either. Basically I just really need some time off from education to figure some stuff out.

Hello everyone, I am rethinking my life choices hardcore (long story) and I was wondering if anyone has first hand experience of what either NYC teaching fellows science immersion program (either Biology or Chemistry) is like. I have hella chemistry credits from undergrad (only a few off from a minor when AP credits from high school are counted) and I was a Biology SI leader my first time in college. While I don't have the required credits to go straight into either biology or chemistry education, I have more than enough to be able to do either immersion program. How rough are these programs with all the additional science courses (including labs I'm guessing)? Is it doable or should I steer clear?

This is a super long winded explanation so I can save you the heartbreak of making my mistake of applying to too many programs. A lot of (most?) programs won't let you apply to more than one program in a given year unless it is two very distinct degrees. For example, you may be able to apply to an MA/PhD in Art History and an MFA in Painting (for example), but they may not let you apply for both an MFA in Painting and an MFA in Sculpture (for example). I think I only applied to one place that explicitly allowed you to apply to more than one program in a single year (SAIC). UIUC and a couple of other places I saw allowed you to select an option to potentially be considered for a different area if they thought it would be a better fit but they didn't allow you to apply for these other areas even if you filed multiple applications. After finishing my first round of applications earlier this year I would seriously recommend applying to fewer programs and focusing more on the quality of each one. The multiple essays for each program will take quite a bit of time to do well from the initial writing phase to proofreading and editing. While the statement of purpose could be recycled from school to school with only minor changes (for my SOP I had one paragraph that I tailored to each school and the rest was left mostly intact) the other essays will be completely unique to each school. It is also not uncommon for schools to ask for up to 3 additional essays (especially if you want to be considered for any funding). Plus there's the time required to do the administrative tasks like filling out the applications, uploading the portfolio, requesting recommendations, and dealing with the inevitable glitches. There's no getting around these time commitments. I ended up applying to 8 schools (I intended on 12 but ended up cutting 4) and spent last fall semester either working, going to class, working in the studio, working on the first draft of my thesis, and working on grad school applications. I had no free time, no social life, and my studio practice ended up suffering because I had to dedicate so much time to my applications. Yes my story is meant to be a cautionary tale because I only ended only being accepted to one program that I ended up turning down. That one program was one of two schools I ended up applying to that I had a good deal of contact with. tl;dr: Grad apps take way too much time to complete, applying to too many will hurt your applications and therefore your chances of getting into a good program. Try to connect with faculty who will be making the decisions and really focus on perfecting each application. Work smarter not harder. That will get you in instead of using the spray and pray method.

I applied to UIC and still haven't heard anything

Hey no worries, everything has gone super crazy! I've gotten tired of masculinity as a topic for my art... I kind of explored it in my first upper level class and then ended up in a shotgun marriage to it for my final 2 years of undergrad. Out of the three above, Lightspeed is the oldest piece but shows more of the conceptual direction I want to head with my art going forward, if that makes sense. So I ended up turning down that one program mainly because the program wasn't a good fit. I only applied because it was advertised as being fully funded and because my undergraduate mentor encouraged me to apply. It was a "fully funded" program that really wasn't fully funded. These were a ton of extra gotcha expenses along with being provided no materials and no workspace so I would have taken out tens of thousands of dollars in loans for a program in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest in a medium that I wasn't passionate about. I honestly wanted a more interdisciplinary experience that they couldn't provide. That program didn't check off most of the boxes of what I wanted out of a program (like studio space, networking opportunities, visiting artists, courses with other MFA students, etc). I could tell it would have ended very badly from my end. Hopefully I don't sound too cynical and jaded because I love art... I just made poor choices during undergrad.

I love that idea! We should just make our own community.

Hey @moon_whale I love the idea of the anti-MFA show...I'm in the process of completely redoing my website and I was thinking about starting a free online-only art gallery that might be able to host it as an extra thumbing our noses at the art system.

I wanted to defer but some schools won't let you. I would contact the places you got in to see if it is even a possibility before you you make that decision, otherwise it may turn into whether or not you want to have to go through the whole application process again. For example, IU wouldn't even budge on our decision deadline so I ended up deciding to just reapply for grad school in a few years.

Thanks @SpillToBuilt that's good advice, especially for the website. I have been planning on completely redoing it but I've been dreading that since I've had the website for over 5 years and I didn't want to do that much work. It sounds like it will be a lot less effort than I thought. These are my 3 best projects: 1. The Mascjacket http://wizigns.com/index.php/portfolio/re-education/ (details are at http://wizigns.com/index.php/portfolio/the-mascjacket/ and http://wizigns.com/index.php/portfolio/the-mascjacket-photos/ ) 2. Morning Woodcuts http://wizigns.com/index.php/morning-woodcuts/ 3. Lightspeed

Hi all, I just turned down the two programs I was accepted into because one wasn't a good fit and the other ended up being too expensive. Does anyone have advice on what I can do over the next few years to make my application more competitive for schools that are a better fit and have better funding. I'm considering both interdisciplinary studio MFA's and art history grad programs for my next time around.

I officially declined my offer from IU digital art today Update on my list IU Digital Art - Accepted (2/13 via email, letter in the mail a couple of days later), declined 3/26 UCR - Interviewed 2/14 - Rejected via email UCSD - Rejected via app portal SAIC (Printmedia, Sculpture, FVNMA) - Rejected via letters in the mail UCI (Electronic Art & Design) - Rejected via app portal Purchase College MA Art History- Accepted 3/20 (without funding), declined admission Purchase College MFA Studio- Rejected 3/13 via app portal UIC (New media), Illinois (New Media) - Crickets