Ever since Grade 3, I have wanted to be an artist. We had to make a presentation of what we wanted to be when we grew up and that day I showed up in class with a painter’s smock, a painting pallet and a barrette. “I want to be an artist,” I said. I have stuck true to my word, unlike all the astronauts and firemen in my class. I was known as “the kid that could draw well” in elementary school. In high school, I took every art class available to me; by senior year, I was the art teacher’s assistant and on my spare I was in art class working on my portfolio for art school.
The Decision
Emily Carr was my choice, being a Vancouverite made it an easy choice for me for the location and the good things I have heard about the programs. Every year I came closer to my goal of “becoming an artist”, but by now I was more geared to becoming a designer. I had already started working with “clients” in high school designing stickers, tattoo and such for friends. I knew for a fact that this is what I was going to do with my life and that Emily Carr was going to be my next step. So I worked my butt off on my portfolio, applying for scholarships and doing art to get into the school. I got accepted with two scholarships under my belt and was one of the few students to get into Emily Carr straight out of high school.
The Education
First year of Emily Carr is called Foundation. It’s your basic learning blocks for becoming an artist or figuring out what kind of artist you wanted to be. It is geared towards people who don’t know what they want to do with their life and students who continue on with post-secondary education because it seems like the right thing to do. Foundation isn’t what I needed. I was again one of those few students who knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Just like Grade 3, I went into Emily Carr on my first day saying “I want to be a designer” with a few clients lined up already on top of the homework I was about to receive. I breezed through first year knowing that I was going to get into the design program. I was one of the 100 students who got into the Communication Design program at Emily Carr, just what I wanted.
This professor told me exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear, and I was sitting at the back of the class contradicting what he was telling us.
My first day of my second year at Emily Carr was a disappointment. They called all of the first year design students into one classroom and all the professors gave a speech to prepare us. One of the professors sticks out in my mind. He told us, “I know a lot of you want to work for yourselves and be successful freelance artist, you want to have a name for yourself and design skateboards, snowboards and clothing for cool companies. Let’s be realistic, this is not going to happen. Most of you will be working for big design firms pumping out work for them.” This pissed me off. I was sitting in the back of the room at that very moment thinking of the very first skate graphic I was designing THAT week (for one of my first clients Rayne Longboards). This professor told me exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear, and I was sitting at the back of the class contradicting what he was telling us. The Communication Design program at Emily Carr is a lot of talk.
In all fairness I only lasted 2 years at Emily Carr, one of those being in the Communication design program. The reason why I left is because I was hired by Option Snowboards as a designer. I had reached my goal of designing snowboards and clothing without finishing the design program at ECIAD. The very reason I was going to that school was to get a job like that, and I wasn’t about to go back to school if I was already getting hired for the work I was producing.
It also wasn’t my work at Emily Carr that got me hired, it was the work I was doing on the side. On top of my homework and assignments I was picking up as many clients I could find, “real world” work. In my experience, job prospects look at your “real world” work and its quality before they look at your diploma or degree. I have now been in the working field of design for the last 5 years, 2 of those being a successful freelance artist (although I am gearing myself more towards illustration now).
As for recommending the school or not…that is a hard thing to do. It depends on the person.
The Verdict
As for recommending the school or not…that is a hard thing to do. It depends on the person. For someone like myself who has known what I wanted to do since Grade 3, I wouldn’t recommend it. Not everyone is like me though; some people need to go through the learning process that the program offers. I would not discourage them, everyone has to find their own path. I myself would go back to ECIAD for specific classes that I believe to be beneficial; I just would not enroll in a complete program.
Good luck to all you aspiring artists, and check out my work at www.illustratratemoore.com.
(4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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jeff spicolli
While I do appreciate the strong stance you take on emily carr, your overall message is less of a review then a life story. you sound like an exceptional individual with allot of talent, unfortunately you are are the last person I would ask to write a review of an educational institute. You have had a unique experience in pursuing secondary education and as such are not in a position to describe the “Typical” Emily Carr experience or to properly present and weigh the pros and cons of such an experience. Above all starting the review with “Dropped Out And I’m Doing Awesome” is kind of like saying “Walked out of Aliens after 20 minutes, shit film”. Best of luck to you man.