I had an unusual experience in my life that most others at SAIC did not. I actually went to, and graduated from, the University of Michigan with a bachelor's in English. So, going to SAIC was like icing on the cake for me. I got to experience a full university feel, and then to attend an art school which is an extremely different experience. One thing about art school is that "practical" is actually a bad word. It's rather taboo. They raise their students to think conceptually and abstractly. You can get away with just about anything there. There is no limit to what kind of creativity you can do. In fact, the best work you make is actually when you go home and say "This is a BS project, so I'm gonna be radical and extreme and totally make a BS piece from it." And then you do something really whack and crazy, something you'd -never- do if you felt you were going to be judged in any way on the piece. And you do get crits, but usually the crits suggest ideas that make it even more whacky, to push it even further. No one ever tells you to pull back at the school. You can get away with a lot of eccentric thoughts. The more eccentric, honestly, the better. I loved that freedom of thought. There were no weights holding down your creativity, and your portfolio reflects that. People inspire other people at the school and it's an entirely creative environment. The downside, however, is if you want a -practical- job after you graduate, there aren't many, if any, available. You'll have the most creative portfolio in the world, but unless you invest your efforts in something that has a real future for you, potentially, like visual communications/graphic design, animation, or architecture, then your degree will at least guarantee you an excellent job as a waitress. At the very best, you may get an assistant art teaching job at a preschool, if you graduate with a portfolio in painting. Yes, there are some who have gone on to become great gallery artists from the school, but you have to REALLY be the kind of person to schmooze with people and sleep with gallery owners (I'm not joking about the sleeping with the gallery owners part. Art galleries are -COMPETITIVE- to get into, and if you don't sleep with someone to get your work in there over someone else's, they'll brown nose/sleep their way to the top instead of you, and you'll get shafted). Art school is a really fun, great experience, but I know that my future job that I'm hired for will appreciate my University background probably even more than the art school background. Especially because SAIC is a pass/fail school. If you show up to class and don't skip more than 3 classes per semester for each class, you pass the class. There's no way to fail any creative homework assignments. It's hell to get into graduate school with pass/fail grades. They have no idea if you're intelligent enough to handle assignments. And I've met a lot of people at SAIC who weren't the class whizzes in high school. I gained an appreciation for experimental sexuality at SAIC. I never participated in it, but I know a lot of people who did. And there were a great number of fashion-setting students there... many of whom would invent their own wardrobes... and not in the beautiful sense. And I've never seen so many different colors of hair before.

The school location is amazing. It's right downtown and there's lots of places to go and eat, and the CTA bus transportation and elevated subway line transportation is hard to beat. I loved Chicago, but downtown shuts down after 8pm, a lot of places after 7pm, so if you stay in the dorms, you're going to be annoyed at how hard it is to find anything to eat for dinner, and -anything- to eat on weekends, since all of downtown is closed (even McDonald's is closed on weekends downtown). And going grocery shopping is a hassle because it's a subway ride away. I lived off-campus... but it also meant I didn't meet as many people as the students who lived in the dorm. I guess it's up to you to decide where you'd like to live.

The first year at SAIC was a shift for me... it took me a year before I really developed solid friends, and it's very sad because I graduated after 2 years.... right after I started making some really solid friendships. You'll have a much different experience than I did if you attend SAIC for the first year... The freshmen have to go through an entire first year program that's BULLSH*T. They make you do the most stupid assignments, and take the most stupid classes in existence. About 40% - 60% of students DROP OUT after the first year because they think the school is BS and the assignments are BS from it. Most students who enter sophomore year are actually transfer students. I met more transfer students than continuing students when I was in the upper level classes. Drop-out rate is incredibly high... Not because the classes are hard, but because the school is SO unpractical in nature. It's like a giant creative playground. And the first year for freshmen is absolute torture. If you can survive the first year, then you'll love all the upcoming years. But it's a very, very rough road at first.

I miss Chicago and I miss SAIC. I loved SAIC so much that I consider that my undergraduate education, and fail to even really recollect my experience at Michigan. It seems like a faded lost memory of another life. I think I truly came alive and found myself while I was in art school. It really changed my life.

I hope I could help.