You set my kid up with all the hype, thinking she’s going to have the best education and artistic experience ever! She is accepted, enrolls, chooses her courses and of course these have prerequisites! No problem! She’s very excited she has all the courses she wanted and is happy to start this next journey in her life. We get her all settled into her new place, more convenient because we live outside of HRM. After the money is paid, the semester starts and first day in she finds out ALL PREREQUISITE CLASSES ARE CANCELLED!!! Due to lack of interest?? Of course now she can’t take her other courses she really wanted because she doesn’t have the ability to take the prerequisites! She left her job to go back to school to fully concentrate on her studies and now this? When did you know you had this lack of interest? Could you have not notified the students before they uprooted their lives, paid out all this money, to end up with a huge disappointment at the other end? No wonder you’re losing money! No wonder you’re steadily declining in numbers! If you’re going to save your establishment, something’s gotta give! It’s our childrens’ futures here! Does anyone have any good advice here and not just the smart-assed remarks about arts students? Please? Surely to God this school has a better alternative than to slam the door in my daughter’s face? I’m pissed! Not to mention, broke! — You Take Our Money Now We Have to Take What We Get??
This article appears in May 2-8, 2013.
that’s a shame, i hope you get all your money back
The old bait and switch at universities goes back many years. Read the fine print, they’ve covered their asses.
they’re never going to get back the moving/housing costs, plus the kid gave up her job. I think it’s crazy that they didn’t announce til first day. surely they knew beforehand that there weren’t enough sign ups for the pre-req classes
One smart arsed comment, made to order;
If not for NSCAD there would be a huge shortage of baristas, not the ones suing to unionise Just Us.
pretty sure they email at least a month before the class starts that it will be cancelled due to low enrollment. What was she starting in the summer? That situation would never happen in any other term for pre-req classes. Sure it sucks but hey she’ll be super settled for the fall.
Just tell her to register for fall classes. She’ll get her tuition and fees back.
What a wonderful opportunity to teach your child a Life lesson!
BTW… she’s not dying…
If all prerequisite classes are cancelled then how can she not take her other courses as she doesn’t have the ability to take prerequisites for them. Wouldn’t those courses also be included in the whole “All prerequisite classes are cancelled” umbrella?
Same thing happened to my son, who just started his 2nd year, summer classes.
That can’t be legal…
But here’s the thing op.. If your daughter is talented and wants to be a “classic” style artist (painter, sculpter, jeweler etc..) then she doesn’t need school. The good ones don’t need an education.
If she wants to study graphic design or something that requires a certain technical skill, may i suggest the EXCELLENT graphic arts program at NSCC or learning on her own.
I am a programmer and technical writer that decided graphic design was interesting. I am qualified as a junior graphic designer from things i learned completely on my own. I am fully qualified to work in Adobe creative suite and flash (yeah flash sucks but whatever..) and because i taught myself, i learned how to learn. Now i can pick up just about any tool and figure it out quickly.
Tell her to do that.
I’m sorry this happened OP.. like i said before.. that canNOT be legal.. I’m not surprised. This institution has its head up its ass. Still..
NSCC wins hands down. I took courses from the Art College and they were a complete fucking waste of my coin.
I am a self-taught graphic designer as well, eats_crayons, and was employed as such for over 30 years (got certification for PS) – a good portfolio and confidence in your work will open more doors than a fine arts degree. I also taught graphic design for adult education without the benefit of an expensive scroll.
Thing about summer semester classes is that they can get easily cancelled. It sucks, but as cranky mentioned: this is in thie fine print and classes can’t go forth without a certain number of students enrolled (because they literally can’t pay the instructor if enough students aren’t enrolled).
She should be good for fall, though. My advice is to job hunt for a summer position (there are lots because the govt gives summer job grants for students) and give it a go in the fall.
Now that art school is out do something useful and direct her to NSCC where she can learn a real trade and be able to get a real well paying job/career.
I did a degree and, of course, nobody wanted to hire me. They never do op. So I thought “fuck this, i’ll go back and get my masters” and for some reason listened to a random person already making 6 figures in the industry i was trying to break into. He said “Nooo… don’t be stupid. Go to trade school. Combine the theory with an education that actually shows you how to do what it is you want to do”
I’m in excellent shape after following his good advice. Changed my life.
People who are voting down trade school are either students in university who don’t know what they’re talking about (They haven’t yet reached chronic unemployment) or people who didn’t attend trade school, watching in fury as the trade school grads get the best industry jobs and they have nothing.
Trust the upvoters on this op. Don’t listen to the morons. They’re dumb. They’re sour and they haven’t figured out yet that they’re just another face in a very competitive crowd and not the geniuses they once fancied themselves to be.
Genius is rare op. I’ve never met one and I know a lot of people. Without genius, all there is is learning how to learn and how to do what you want to do.
Trade school is an excellent transition out of university. For some kids, they don’t even NEED university first.
I would advise anyone getting into the arts to learn AS MUCH AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE on their own before forking over money to have someone who is teaching (probably because they can’t stay employed full time in their industry) you how to create art. For certain career paths you gotta have that piece of paper, arts isn’t one of those paths. This might be a blessing in disguise. These colleges are in the business of selling pipe dreams.
OP, I went to a private technical arts school, the first day they flipped the script on us, taking away things that were promised to us in our signed contracts. I should have bolted then and there. If they’re giving you the run around on the first day, (I get that courses have to be cancelled sometimes but no notice? shady) take your business elsewhere. The money I spent on the POS course would have been a much better invested in buying myself the equipment, books, computer and the software. I could have a state of the art set up AND easily about 10 grand in my pocket and I personally think I would have learned a ton more. Investing so much time and money on that might actually be my ONLY regret in life, and lord knows I’ve mad some bad decisions.
You know who drove me to do it OP? My parents. I get that parents want to see their kid doing SOMETHING when it comes to an education but when it comes to a career in the arts, if they don’t have the drive to go out and jump feet first into the scene, a formal education isn’t going to help them. They could be the best artist on earth, talent alone doesn’t cut in that business. Your kid, in my humble opinion, would be much better off learning all she can for free, using the internet and libraries and what not. Once she feels like she has learned all she can possibly learned on her own, the money for the formal courses might be a good investment.
Almost no one who goes to art school becomes a successful artist and almost no successful artists went to art school. True story.
And yes trades are awesome, I’m on the NSCC electrical waitlist, hoping to start sept 2014, out of all the people I graduated with, no one is doing better than my electrician/carpenter friends, and their investment was practically nothing, especially when compared to other career paths. However, not everyone belongs on a jobsite.
Serious career choices start in Sept, not May.