People who graduated Art school. Can I ask how your classes were?

[MimSS]

For context, I have 2 main characters in my novel and both are 4th year art students. I based their school off SNU in Seoul and their program is Western Art (so painting and traditional art).
I'd really appreciate if you guys answer my questions <3

1. Did you guys have a final project? Like a final art piece that was displayed at the end of the year? I think some places do this, but I can't be sure. ALSO if you did, what was it called?

2. What was your final year critiques like? Were there critiques for individual classes? And who's giving the critique? Did you have people outside the school come in and do it?

[Dane_Sherbet]

What kinda art specifically? I have a BFA in Creative Writing and we did indeed have a final thesis project. I published a novella about my dad's experience as a young child in WW2. Critiques weren't a thing in most classes, although a few did feature thesis defense.

[Alexandritea]

I haven't really attended a proper art school. But I did take a separate art course where we had a final project and then a place where we displayed everything we had done. We called it a "Vernissage" .

Wikipedia definition if you, like me, didn't know :

A vernissage (from French, originally meaning “varnishing”) is a term used for a preview of an art exhibition.

Maybe not exactly the answer you were looking for, but I hope it can help .

[MimSS]

That actually helps a lot! Thank goodness it's a real thing!

[MimSS]

Ah sorry! I should've specified. It's painting. The school I based theirs on calls it Western Art

[Alexandritea]

Glad I could help !

[pilot-obvious]

I went to a public state school and received a BFA in Digital Arts. My focus specifically was in photography and video, but I took all sorts of different courses in the visual arts world. Both of those questions apply to my experience so I'll go ahead and answer them.

1. We had a final senior year project that everybody in our major was required to complete (as long as they were studying for their BFA and not BA). For that project, we had an entire course dedicated to it, but of course we were expected to do a majority of the work outside of the course. It was also expected to be a larger body of work or a larger, time consuming project. At the end of the year, there was a senior exhibition where every senior/4th year student could submit their work. Not everybody got in since space was limited. My piece Kalopsia was about the impact of electronic waste. It was a video installation with a bunch of old TV monitors looping through some videos I made and it was surrounded by a mountain of old electronic trash! In general, the show was called "The Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Exhibition" and every year the show had its own theme/branding. Outside individuals came in to judge the show.

2. My final year critiques were pretty much like every other year. I had multiple art studios where we had critiques for individual classes. Usually, it was the professor and students giving critiques. For my character and concept class, my professor had a well known author come in (who was also the Dean of English at our school) and we had to pitch our project to him in a one on one meeting. Then he offered feedback about our project.

Kind of related but not really: we would occasionally have outside artists come in and offer critiques, usually through the art club. They would often be bigger names and great connections for 4th year students.

[Dane_Sherbet]

This lines up well with my own experience. I can't believe I'm getting nostalgic.

[NickRowler]

Did you guys have a final project? Like a final art piece that was displayed at the end of the year? I think some places do this, but I can't be sure. ALSO if you did, what was it called?

I didn't go to a school with the strongest art department. We sort of free to do whatever we wanted, as long as you could write about the deeper meaning behind why. I was originally going to animate something but was dealing with a lot of mental and physical health issues so I switched over to making plush sculptures. Everyone had to write a short paper and have their art displayed in a gallery which friends and families could attend. I think it was called a Senior Art & Design Show.

What was your final year critiques like? Were there critiques for individual classes? And who's giving the critique? Did you have people outside the school come in and do it?

We had a Senior arts final class which met like once a week. The only critiques I remember getting was on my paper and on an online portfolio. I never got any harsh critiques from the professors about my work, they thought I was some crazy genius, tho I didn't really feel that way. There were some students which I wish the professor addressed issues about their work, like one person who just used the final to sell her Anime Convention merch or the guy who's performance piece was pretending to be Romani. I did get some classmates who were saying that my art was bad because it wasn't digital which no one said I had to make digital art.

Here's a link to my piece https://nickrowler.tumblr.com/post/84835284712/my-art-is-weird
There was a fourth one but it is sort of difficult to photograph. It was yellow and there was a hole in the bag and finger prints on it's belly.

[irene_addler]

I didn't go to a specialized art school, but I did major in art in university, and have a BFA in Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing and a minor in Art History.

1. Yes, the entire last semester in my major course was spent preparing pieces to show in a final art show that all graduating seniors were required to participate in and exhibited their work in. There wasn't a special name, it was just the annual senior art show/exhibition, something like that. For my final course in my minor (art history), I had to write this long-@$$ paper and I actually loved every moment of it hahaha!

2. Our final year critiques were more in-depth than previous years, but not all that different. We tended to have pot-lucks for my major's course because our teacher was awesome! For all of my critiques, everyone participated. The teacher always gave input, but it was never just the teacher, everyone's opinions were welcome (provided they were respectful). We didn't have outside people come into our courses to critique, but every now and again the art department would host an artist to come and they would occasionally do open critiques of students' work, but you had to bring your work b/c you wanted the critique, and it wasn't required or anything.

Hope that helps some!

[jcmraz]

There wasn't anything displayed but we had the option to participate in the senior exhibit if we wanted to. We also had a type of class where you basically designed your own class and set personal milestones. The first advanced digital paint type class I took the first day I walked in and he gave us about 15 hours of work due in 3 days if you want something like that. It was 100 different designs of something simple. For us it was a coffee mug. The idea being, come up with a LOT of different ideas in a short time. That and deadline focused.

[Dane_Sherbet]

Some cool-as-hell BFAs round here.

[antimekii]

Did you guys have a final project? Like a final art piece that was displayed at the end of the year? I think some places do this, but I can't be sure. ALSO if you did, what was it called?

My final year in university had a art thesis along side other minor art subjects. Same with Alexandritea, each exhibition was called a vernissage.

What was your final year critiques like? Were there critiques for individual classes? And who's giving the critique? Did you have people outside the school come in and do it?

Critiques usually depend on the classes, it's mostly students criticizing other students work with the professor's supervision. However for exhibition works, the art professors usually gather for to critique the works and sometimes brings other known artists in the community.

[rajillustration]

I have a BFA in illustration and so here's how it went (my BFA was traditionally done PS, so it was all painting)

-My final project was my Thesis project, it was both a series of paintings and a paper, since it was required all sr projects have a paper by the University (so I wasn't an "Art School" like other's, mind was an art school within a university, so I have a sort of different experience than other art schools like CalArts) I chose the thesis project myself, mine was a children's book based on Tycho Brahe--meant I had a lot of science and history to write about, and also lots of art to draw about.

-Critiques were done by the professor as well as the class. So the professor would start the critique, and then any students that wanted to offer any advice would do so as well. These were not as stressful as getting critiqued from random strangers, since I practically lived at the art college, so my peers were like family. You get used to them, and they were super valuable. Occasionally you'd have a rude teacher, but the nice teachers balanced it out, and were honestly just trying to help us do the right things and typically knew the right things to say because they knew us so well on a personal level (especially by the Sr year). It's not like online critiques where they don't really know your background and are just like...well here's my opinion hope it helps.

[Dane_Sherbet]

There was a dude getting a BFA in museum curation. He was a graduating class of one.

[MimSS]

Thank you everyone! These have been super helpful <3 <3