Sequential Art Grad School: SCAD?

[Calliope]

Hello,
I'm very interested in stepping up my comics skills since it's something my school's art dept didn't cover. I'm all about the comic learning! Anyway, I visited SCAD and was worried by how difficult it was to deal with the administration, as well as the rich-kid-who-doesn't-care-about-anything mentality I saw (I don't know if that's common or not though...but where the town is so poor and the school so rich, I definitely saw a clash).

So, are there any people who were part of SCAD's masters program for sequential art? Or, if any of you know of any other school's with graduate programs that would be helpful for comics, please share!

Thanks!

[Kismet]

Rich-kid-who-doesn't-care-about-anything mentality? Lol. This is SCAD, not RISD. I assure you, anyone with that sort of attitude is FEW in number here.

[Calliope]

Ooh, burn! I'll take your word for it--I must have just run into those few people when I visited, and to be honest, I'm sure every art school comes with a few of that crowd.

[Gorgonzola]

I was part of the SEQART undergrad program (and had friends in the grad program at the time,) so I can chime in on this a little bit.

The admin is about as frustrating as anywhere else, so depending on how much you hate dealing with admins will determine how worrisome that might be. I've had more good experiences one on one with them than with the admin body as a whole, so it wasn't too bad.

I think the SEQ Dept. is pretty good compared to some of the other majors. The professors are incredibly helpful but willing to kick your ass if you're a screw-up, and many of them won't bother with you if you aren't willing to put in the time. From what I understood, the next closest major, Illustration, is not anything like this - Far more pretentiousness and lack of draftsmanship in those halls.

Most of the kids in the dept. when I went were great to get along with and had a terrific mentality and work ethic. There were a few jerks, but were pretty much avoidable the whole time I was there.

Grad program is more or less the same as the undergrad - similar courses with either a bigger class load or tweaked objectives. Your thesis project from what I vaguely remember was a single project you took on - I believe one of my friends went about illustrating key scenes from the Simarillion to make into an illustrated book, another did a 200 pg. graphic novel, another did storyboards for several short films, etc. It was pretty much something you tailored to your interests. I don't the details of it though, since I never pursued a masters degree.

If you've got more general questions about the SEQ. dept though, I'd be happy to help.

[Rgrayson]

Are you talking about Atlanta or Savannah?

My advise, if you can go to Savannah, do it. Atlanta has a wide variety of problems 'under the hood', at least they did a couple years ago, and from what I've heard, things have gotten worse.

Big clue: if the instructional faculty at the school you're thinking of is made up 100% of graduates from the very school in question, be prepared for elitist attitudes, unconnected to reality.

Paul Hudson and Tom Lyle are awesome!
Savannah's crime problem always worries me though.

[Psychotime]

Rich-kid-who-doesn't-care-about-anything mentality? Lol. This is SCAD, not RISD.

But nah, it certainly exists over here, but not necessarily in SEQA. And I really doubt it's among graduates.