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Chop Logic
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Consider transferring to a different school.
It took me two years to really like my life socially at MICA. I slowly grew into it but yeah. I didnt meet the people who I consider honest super awesome friends untill.. well... spring semester freshman year.
The difference for me is I enjoyed almost all of my classes. Honestly, if you hate everything about your school, transfer. But unless its something major about the atmosphere or the people are very similar, you may just have to acknowledge that it may take you a while to really feel comfortable at your school.
It may be contrary to most college advice, but Id hinge the decision primarily on how you feel about your classes and your improvement. College is about being social but you are paying quite a bit more for a private art school, and you should put alot of weight on your program and its effectiveness.
If you are going to pratt and you want to roll down the coast alittle, I would suggest visiting mica. If for no other reason than we have a wide variety in our student body, personality wise.
Are you going to a private school or a public school?
I went to a community college and transferred to a public university to finish my art degree. While there are bullshit unrelated classes you must take, there is a fairly good reason for it, it gives you a broader range of knowledge, though it may be useless to you, it is intended to broaden your intellect and help with your critical thinking. Fuck, I thought I would hate geology, and granted it was useless overall to me, I can't say that didn't appreciate the would ten fold more after passing it.
And really, it took me about four semesters to get into anything I really had interest in. My Freshman and Sophomore years were used to just get rid of pre-reqs and core classes.
To succeed in art, you really don't need a degree, especially in two dimensional art. Three dimensional you can get by, but if you have the conviction and self discipline to teach yourself, then drop out and spend your money renting a studio space to practice in. You are however, passing up one of the greatest experiences in doing so. You will never really be in a learning environment like this again with like-minded peers and professors who can be the biggest resource in your career as a young artist.
That being said, you will only have a positive experience if you think positively and want to be there. If the school is that much of a hindrance, then fucking transfer to a different school. Private art schools are over-rated.
Edit: Forbe, I to had to take a geology class with a friend of mine. We both went in hating it but it was indeed our favorite class of the semester in the end.
If your entire tuition is well around the $100K mark, you need to transfer to another school. For paying that kind of money and having to deal with that kind of shit, it just isn't worth it.
I've taken a look at your flickr gallery and it's some pretty good stuff. You should try shooting for a Sheridan transfer. Tuition is under $30K for the entire tuition. This isn't counting living expenses, but to be honest if you or your parents are going to be spending $Texas at the end of this four year school i'm pretty sure the added living expense isn't going to be nearly the same amount as if you stay there.
Seriously, especially when your teacher is the game-warden from Jurassic Park.
Also, you are very obviously in need of social stimulation. Try to hold down your condescension for other people long enough to learn who they are before deciding whether or not they are worth your time. This is doubly true for your classmates. They are in the same school you are, going through the same classes, so at the very least you have that much in common. Who knows, maybe they will share feelings similar to yours and will welcome the opportunity to bitch about how stupid it is with someone else. Stranger things have been known to happen in college.
In all seriousness, just try to be positive and nice to the people around you. Frankly, people who are fun to hang out with generally aren't in the market for new friends, and I doubt how you carry yourself or come across will make them want to bother wasting time on you.
I'm in Parsons for Illustration and will also be doing English at Lang, a dual degree program. My tuition is probably about 45,000 a year, 12,000 off from a scholarship I think, and it's a five year program.
Basically I'm in the foundation program where they weed kids out. There is a 60% drop out rate first year. Also, everyone takes the same foundation classes whatever your major is, so I'm not actually in the illustration department yet, but still. I'm not really sure what I should do. I would transfer but really, I've heard having a Parsons degree will open a ton of doors for me after graduating, as opposed to having a degree from Kansas Art Institute or SUNY New Paltz or something. That's mostly what I'm worried about, graduating and not being able to find a job, so I've felt like having Parsons on my degree would really help with that, though I could be just being stupid. I wouldn't mind some advice in this area.
(1) You don't like the program you're in.
(2) You don't like the people you've met.
(3) You're uncomfortable in your living environment.
(3) is, I think, more a symptom than a cause. Dorms are pretty shit, by-and-large, especially freshman year (if you don't get lucky.) But they're something that, if you were happy with everything else, you'd tolerate. You can probably find a quiet place to relax and draw, if you try hard enough.
I think that considering the foundation program is specifically designed to be focus-independent, you should worry less about the focus it's taking away from your drawing (you'll have plenty of time for that in the rest of your... life) and judge the program on its own merits. Some of it may seem irrelevant to you and some of it may seem like bullshit, but almost nothing is irrelevant to anybody.
Some things are bullshit though.
As for the people, it's hard to tell if you've given them a fair shake. From your post it seems like you've dismissed them based on surface behavior. Whether or not that's true, have you tried talking to, say, any of the rest of the people at that school? Friendships don't always fall into your lap.
It may be that you'll decide you want to transfer, but I've seen people transfer from school to school and never be happy. Unless there's something we don't know, this is your first time getting thrown into a completely new lifestyle and social situation.
All that said, I also recommend talking to a counselor.
You don't have to know someone that well to call them up to hang out. Hanging out is how you get to know someone.
Boldness is a trait people admire.
Basically you won't break out from your small established circle of friends unless you make an effort. There's nothing wrong with inviting someone you've just met to go do something. That's how you make friends.
I had a rough time first year at school as well. I considered transferring, but ended up sticking it out. After I got over myself, the rest of my time there went much better. If you really don't like your program then maybe you should transfer or change programs. Whatever you do see an advisor or dean first and talk about your problems with the curriculum. It could be that you're not learning anything, or it could be that you're dismissing the lessons instead of engaging them. I do have one friend who lives by the theory that money is much better spent on paint than art school, but that philosophy doesn't work for everyone.
I go to NYU, I think all city schools just have the kind of problem your talking about. Believe me, your not the first person I've heard this from. I've heard it from kids going to Julliard, Columbia, Pratt, and of course NYU (Tisch kids are fucking crazy, DO NOT GO TO TISCH). Just relax, if it wasn't so cold I would just recommend chilling in a park somewhere and drawing. My friend makes it a regular habit to wake up early and go drawing in Washington Square Park, he's in fine arts at Steinhardt. You can always go hang out in the library if your school has one, I know a kid that dropped out of the New School and is just living in Bobst now. Anyways like you said, it'll get better. Just stick through all the bullshit now, I hate all my classes and I am not learning shit either but you'll only be able to take the classes that mean anything only after you take the idiot-fuck classes. And if you want to chill, just PM me.
Indeed. I've actually made a lot of my friends with statements very similar to that. Run into someone talking about things I care about and showing a good working knowledge of the subject and I will come right out and say "oh you like x? Awesome, we can be friends."
As for friends, personally there's only few people that I'll go out of my way to be friends with. The secret to having a good social life is not to be friends with everyone (IMO that'll only lead to disaster), but to be well known and knowledgeable. Learn what's going on around campus, going on in the news, going on around town, etc. You don't have to know everything, but you only need to know enough to hold conversation with the student council crowd, then turn around and hold a conversation with the anime club, and so on.
A lot of things you're saying are just things everyone goes through. From the way you talk about your classes, it strikes me as that you feel that you are better than that, and that you shouldn't bother to learn them, or already do. They're called basics for a reason, and even you said that the classes you're taking are there to weed people out. Maybe you just don't belong there then?
I mean, I'm all for a person being happy in school and all, but if it's your first semester, you might seriously think about it carefully before you go transfering. Every school is going to have classes you don't like, and the further you get into your major, the more you'll see familiar faces in your classes.
As for classes, what you're experiencing is unfortunately what many people do their first year. Yes, there can be a lot of useless classes, but keep in mind why you're taking them: to get the requirements for a degree to get a job. I know taking mind numbing or pointless classes full of mongerals sucks, but you're almost certainly going to run in to this problem at every school. As others have mentioned, a lot of programs are like this, and most of the morons get weeded out within a semester or two. Toughing it out isn't easy, though, if you can't find happiness somewhere else in your life.
Dorms are a polarizing experience, too. Most of the people I know loved freshman year dorms, if not for their particular roommate than the good times with their suitemates or who ever. I was not one of these people. I didn't like my roommate, who wasn't a bad guy by any stretch. I didn't like the people in my hall, and I didn't want to hang out with any of them. Somehow I stumbled into a group of friends outside this, though, and so freshman year managed to be pretty okay for me.
It's easy in theory to make friends, but it can still be a scary process. Not everyone can or wants to do it, so don't feel too bad about it. Since you do go to shows or art galleries, though, you're in places you can easily connect with people. Strike up a conversation with someone you think is cute, or maybe they're wearing an interesting shirt. Chat them up, and chances are they're either alone like you, or they came with a group of friends. With any luck you'll be introduced to the larger group, and you can decide from there if you want to hang out with this new crew.
Since you never feel like you get a chance to relax, maybe you should find a hobby that is fairly low key, like listening to classical music, going to art museums, bird watching; anything that is fairly quiet and allows you to have your headspace. Try doing it once during a weekend, like a meditative exercise, and see if this clears your head a little for the coming week. The key is to create a division between your work (school, the things that stress you out), and fun. Partition off a place in your life that's all your own, and then work from there.
I grew up in State College, PA. I didn't even apply to PSU when looking for colleges, because I wanted to go somewhere else. Specifically, I wanted USC or Oberlin Con. I got into Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Composition. Amazing school rep, incredible facilities, everything on paper looked great.
Then I went there. The faculty and I didn't get along at all in terms of views, and the best part of the experience was the stuff there that wasn't even part of the degree. I met some nice people, and I had a bunch of friends, I actually was even happy with my social standing and all of that. I just hated the program. It got to the point where after my entire high school time composing, I hated doing it. I rebelled, hard against the teaching, and they didn't take kindly to that. Hell, I'm still bouncing from that in my music, and it's now really biting and sarcastic when I write classically. Well I transferred(guess where).
I cannot even describe how much better this place is for me. What I was looking for was exactly what the faculty here provide. Outside of the degree I'm getting work left and right, I'm pretty much constantly triple booked doing exactly what I want to do.
Now, if you're still adjusting to college, there's a chance that you're just having a problem with the transfer to college and need to get used to the different dynamic. Or, since there's the foundation thing there, maybe you'll like it more when you're in the program. A lot of art places first and second years are stupid hell where you do stupid stuff and then the next two are actually working with what you want to do with faculty more personally. Maybe try giving it a chance to get to that point, see how you like it once you're actually in the department and doing what you want. With something artistic though, it depends so much on the specific professors you work with.