The Academy of Art University

Date: Sep 29 2011
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
So I just wanted to share my experience so I can warn everyone about this school. I do not mean to bad mouth this school in no way shape or form but you have to remind yourself that this school is a for profit institution so they dont really care that you learn anything as long as you pay them. They will try to charge you for everything, maybe even breathing on campus if they could. At first I was interested in the school because of the program, it is very good in theory. If they were to hire more professional employees interested in actually educating students and not just failed artists who need jobs they could have something going for them. I am pretty sure if they did, they wouldnt let just anyone attend. I had classmates who knew nothing about the craft, to me it was something they just wanted to do because it's cool, which is one of the down sides to going to an institution that doesn't require a portfolio. I must remind you that I am speaking for the undergraduate program, specifically the motion pictures department. There was one class that I really benefit from, the instructor was really professional and on top of the students, making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to. But in another class the instruction not only missed the first day of class, but several days after that. I can honestly say anything I had to learn for that class I did on my own, she was not helpful at all and would play movies and tell us to think about it, and not give us any particular explanation. I knew of a few students who filed complaints about her the thing is about a private school education that also in theory it is better quality for the price so for me I am not a rich kid at all I am just extremely hard working and thought I deserved a quality education but for the price it just wasn't worth it. I am very serious about my education so I just went forward with it and got some pretty decent grades. I think it could have been better though if some of my instructors knew what they were doing. Despite these experiences I moved away from san francisco and wanted to continue my education so signed up for online classes. This is the warning I am talking about, if you are an online student and on financial aid, stay on top of it or dont do it at all because they will not notify you of anything. So I signed up this fall and I was told my loans were approved and to sign a note, same as usual and I thought everything was going fine but none of my financial aid had gone through. I thought maybe they didn't update my information so I called them several times. Trust me when I say several times on several days for a month. I was told to sign the note every time, at this point I had done it twice once before classes started and again after school started and still nothing. So a month later my advisor calls me asking for a form, when they could have asked me several times before when I tried to contact her, but I was completely ignored. Then I got an attitude from her because I didn't give her the form right away when I wasnt notified and they put a hold on my online account. So at this point I was completely furious because of neglect and unprofessionalism I was going to get an absence and that would very much affect my grade, again my grade being effected because of the schools lack of professionalism and concern for students. You see I say this because they are so easy to hold my account for money they did not receive because of their neglect and lack of communication but when I tried to contact them they didn't want to deal with me. I decided to take my loses and transfer to a regular institution, I just continued because I didn't want to bother with the hassle of transfering but I see that compared to my experience it would have been no bother at all.