Comment by torginus

On a side note, one thing every single one of my peers who have pursued a creative degree have echoed, be it architecture, literature, graphic design, industial design etc. - is that the only way to get a good grade is to find out what your professors personal preferences and opinions are and be in total and utter agreement with them.

Any amount of critical views tends to result in your work torn to pieces and you getting a shitty grade.

Your architecture professor likes turrets? Then better put them even on the chicken coop - that way he'll no you're one of the students who gets it.

Your lit professor loves a certain philosopher? - better not point out that you find his arguments circular, ponderous and betraying a lack of broad perspective.

This has been utterly weird to me considering I have encountered way less (but not zero) of this thing in engineering, and art is supposed to be about developing your self-expression, but I've heard this criticism so many times from so many places and formulated so strongly. I've had many people flat out leave their educations because of this, with others just quietly powering through.

This in of itself has changed my view of art education, and I've told many people to stay away from these places not because of the usual 'it's useless and you'll starve to death arguments' but because of this.