Hi! My name is ______ and I am contacting you hoping you might have a minute to offer me some feedback about your experience in the AC+D program. I am very excited about the opportunity, but am trying to weigh all my options carefully and get as much information as I can. Many thanks for your time!
I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the ACD program, please consider that it has changed a lot since I was a student in the first class of 2011, but I will try my best answering honestly. Email works best, please just send my your questions.
Best,
Jason
Thanks Jason. Any overall impressions would be appreciated. And any feedback about how grad school helped further your career or didn't help. I am grateful for you taking the time to write!
Well ______, grad school in the ACD program changed my life. How's that for an over all impression? Just kidding. But it did really. In the ACD program we considered what I call everything known to human kind. Allow me to explain. the program is not specific. It considers, in conversation with your student peers as well as in open dialog critics, art, craft and design. Those three disciplines are the umbrella for all human thinking and innovation including all of the sciences. In my opinion.
I considered the program vast in scope, our dialog was not art or craft or design specific. There are many different teachers and students with different interests and backgrounds. No one previous language is suitable to discuss all the different view points in the room. At times this is freeing and at other times this is like treading water and gaining no traction for what you want to do. At no one time did I ever feel that I had an ally in my group who had the same intentions or expectations in this program while in grad school.
While the generalized language we developed over the first year opened up my mind to possibility in the things I make and what they could be, at no time did I find a focus. Personally, only now, some 5 years later do I feel like I know what I want to make as well as gained a group of like minded people to help support those ideas. And I had to move across the country to do so. I did meet one person during grad school to help with my current situation though.
This may all sound like bad things, it is not. I say if you want your practice expanded, go for it. It is the long road, you may not find your immediate group. You will be exposed to one or two guest artists or mentors who you respond to and they may become helpful to you after school.
The program is odd, it is what you contribute to it, it is very open in that way, you may feel empowered by this or you may feel isolated at times. There is not much of a previous history of which to attach your anchor to. (there maybe now, as I said I was part of the first class, I had no anchor, but there are more current graduates who have looked to me and my class for support, I did not have that opportunity.)
This may all seem pretty wishy washy, but I will end on this, if your graduate intention is to focus on a medium or a certain discipline, a certain way of thinking (for instance a specific interest in ceramic sculpture) consider another school, if your graduate intention is to loosen up and explore other ways of creative thought consider the ACD program.
FYI the ACD program has other things to take into consideration as well, there is a strong focus on branding, marketing and entrepreneurial studies. This may or may not be of interest to you and therefor you may or may not find distracting to you creative interests.
Grad school in the ACD program did not further my career, it confused the shit out of me, which I think is what all grad school programs are supposed to do. Its called being a student. I took in a lot of information, I considered a lot of other peoples interests that I had no interest in, I learned patience. I learned to look at the world in a more broad light, I can talk about the same thing from a few different stand points now. I appreciate this greatly, but I will say that most people don't appreciate this, people want specifics, they want to know what you do in one sentence, they want to be able to attach what you do to something they all ready know, they want to label what you make and what you do. I find this annoying and limited in thinking about things today. But I enjoy challenges and that won over my decision to go to the ACD program.
Sorry, there are no simple answers, (that's probably due to my education in the ACD program as well.)
Best of luck,
Jason Lee Starin
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