#SCAD is trending?
When I graduated SCAD, I walked and moved home, I received an email that a class I took sophomore year wasnt factored into my GPA and now it was too low to graduate so I had to move back and take one class, but I wasn’t full time so I couldn’t live on campus so I signed
A year long lease which meant that as I was paying for school I couldn’t leave, went over 6months on my loan grace period and couldn’t afford to break my lease to get a better job
Let’s go farther back, my sophomore year, a scholarship I was getting stopped half way through the year, while I was on winter break, so Scad said if I can’t pay don’t come back and I said okay and they said they were going to throw out all my stuff in the dorm so another
Student could move in because without the scholarship I couldn’t afford a ticket to come get it and I said okay and then 10 weeks later, 8 weeks into the quarter I got an email asking why I wasn’t attending my classes or living on campus and I said I wasn’t allowed to come back
And suddenly there was scholarship for me and I had to return immediately to start spring. Then I had to stay for summer because of the scholarship I was getting from NY said I had to use 3 quarters a year to stay enrolled so that’s how I once attended school for 18 months
Straight with no break. Then my mentor growing up died and I had already taken off for dental surgery and I asked to withdraw and they said Siobhan you can’t with draw if you’ve used all your absences you will automatically fail and if you fail you’ll fall below your scholarship
GPA requirements and youll loose your scholarship so I said okay and missed one of the most important funerals of my life for gen ed classes. On two separate occasions I had to couch surf because there “wasn’t room” in the dorms even tho I had already paid the reservation fee.
When I first enrolled at SCAD I did so as an online student, I was already running a theater in NY. I stopped to pursue my passion in comics. The online classes were so horrible and poorly run that I had to move to GA because I was incapable of learning in that environment.
Just in case it wasn’t clear, at 20 years old I was running a broadway style theater an hour outside New York City & was frequently consulted on how to run a creative establishment for people with alternative intelligences & I could not function 8 weeks in SCADs online courses.
One year I had to stay for summer and the school building I was supposed to learn in was under construction so I stayed in a bug infested non air conditioned motel room in Georgia heat taking online classes because I did not have enough to go home and wait for fall. I failed two
Of Three classes and when I explained my extenuating circumstances (accommodations) to the financial aide office they implied that had I only reached out for help it would have been given and held off factoring in the GPA if I immediately retook the courses. I had 133% work load
This came the spring directly after I was kicked out. I am only where I am today due to the never ending compassion and intellect of my professors, my own wit, and that is it. I have more stories but it’s Mother’s Day and I’d like to keep a light mood for dinner.
The only benefit of SCAD is the professors and the physical location. If these are not accessible SCAD loses all worth and credibility. there is no reason at all to attend online classes. No rise and grind culture. no fear of failure. nothing. In scads very own mission statement
It says it prepares talented students for creative professions through engaged teaching and learning in a positively oriented university environment. You are already talented if you have been accepted and it is not your fault if they can’t live up to their own goals.
SCAD does not have the facilities to teach digital classes to artistic minds and it certainly cannot run a corrispondace school in any capacity. Take a year off take a quarter off if the ship goes down after a quarter alone, she’ll know what it’s like to be a student.
I have never asked or been asked about my education when job searching in the artistic field. It was my personal goal to get a degree, I was the first in my family, and I’m very proud. But I would not have stayed if it wasn’t in my personal interest, and neither should you.
