Arts Education: Be an Informed Consumer

I recently came across an article in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, titled Are fashion students being stitched up? which discusses the sqeezing-out of difficult, expensive but fundamental components of textile courses. The cuts leave leaving students under-skilled at graduation. A student is quoted as saying "I wasn't able to do a basic block and yet it's the first thing you need to learn," she says. "With the tuition fees you're paying, the universities should teach you what you need to know."

This sort of article highlights the need for students to thoroughly investigate any prospective university courses. Naturally, fee-hungry institutions are going to sing the praises of their successes. You can get a bit of an idea from the prospectus in terms of identifying what they do formally teach, but how do you know if those are the skills you'll need?

The trick here is to work backwards. Look at your long-term goals, and be realistic. You aren't likely to walk straight into a plum job with Dreamworks (or - insert name of dream job in your field) but you can try to get the right skills and experience. Running a few Google searches with terms like "animator c.v. resume disney" I found the online CVs of all sorts of artists and could see the sort of career path that took them to the top jobs. Keeping an eye on industry and trade association websites keeps you abreast of the latest changes in technology and associated skillsets. Talk to people in the industry and plot a realistic path. Don't just wander into a course that will take you 'somewhere'.

Where art is concerned, the basics are relatively universal - figure drawing, and drawing from life, are critical skills in nearly every profession. Take a look at any animation storyboard or game art concept sketch: these folks can really draw. So you'll want your course to include figure drawing.

Technology is critical in most commercial studios of any sort - whether you're into industrial design, advertising or comic books, you'll need to be able to navigate the latest software. So checking out the computer labs is essential. Pay attention to the age of the hardware and find out how much access you have to computing facilities. Know what the industry standard is for your profession: the school should be running a recent edition of that software - be it Autodesk, Maya, Shake, Photoshop, Quark, and so on.

Remember too that education can also run a long way behind industry. Critical skill shortages have been a bit of a 'wake up' call in this regard. But the reality is that cutting edge software this week might be redundant, or at least completely reconfigured, by the time you've graduated. So it's important to understand the process, not just be blindly punching buttons.

The key lesson I'm taking away from the fashion design student's experience is that education is a product. Sometimes it's a good product, and sometimes it's a shoddy one. When you're buying an education - and you're going to pay a lot for it - you'd better make sure it's a good one. Don't just assume that "they" know what's good for you. They might, but they might not have the resources to provide it. When you hit tertiary and trade education, you have a great deal more choice than you did at school - but it's up to you to make an informed choice.