In mid-late April, OCAD hosted a small event called Create Your Future for students who received an offer of admission, giving them an opportunity to gain information, tour the facilities, drop off outstanding documents, and get a chance to speak to some of the professors at the university.
Now, before I get into this, let me just put it out there now that I’ve already accepted OCAD’s offer. I haven’t heard from York yet, but in the end, OCAD was the better decision for me. Had I been able to avoid the daily three-hour commute, I probably would still be waiting. But after speaking with one of my friends who attended York for Schulich (a highly esteemed business program), it made me realize that if a commute was going to potentially compromise my motivation for school, then it wasn’t worth it.
Yeah yeah, you can give me the shpeel all you want about how if I was motivated enough, I should be able to deal with it. But forgive me, I’m not a superhuman. I’ve already gone through university and, honey, as much as you’d like to think that the excitement will be enough to get you out the door and travel three hours everyday for four years, you’re still gonna have those days where you don’t want to go. And those days will be more plentiful if a long commute is a factor.
Anyway, to get back on topic, I ended up attending the event, wanting to learn a bit more about this place, and let’s just say that… any decisions I made about going to OCAD did not stem from this event. At all.
I arrived at the main building about 15 minutes before the event was scheduled to begin… for Faculty of Design students, anyway. Faculty of Art students had their’s early in the morning. It took a while to settle in with so many students bringing their parents and friends.
When a speaker finally came up to the podium, the first thing she spoke about was her “expectation” that compared to the art students, design students had a tendency to be tardy and that she was happy that we were able to “prove her wrong.” Really? Surely you could’ve thought of a better way to start off the presentation than to make a rude generalization that has nothing to do with why we were there in the first place.
After some general statements about the school, the president of OCAD, Sara Diamond, took to the podium, talking more about the school, the various programs, recent changes and developments, and, of course, their accomplished alumni.
Oh boy, are they ever hung up on the success of their alumni. I think 70% of this entire presentation must have consisted of name-dropping. Sure, a few might not hurt, y’know, the key ones that every high school student who has taken art would recognize. The Group of Seven, for example. But is it really necessary to go on and list 20 names in a row of your accomplished graduates? To put it blankly – no1curr.
And god, the number of times I’ve had to hear her stress the phrase “breadth of knowledge.”
You see, OCAD has recently changed their name to OCAD University (which makes no sense because OCAD stands for Ontario College of Art and Design). And while OCAD had university status for a while now (even when I was still in high school), somehow, it became necessary to rename the school as they moved towards a more academic-based curriculum. And I guess with the stress on OCAD becoming a “legit” university, students are now required to take courses in Liberal Studies, and therefore, getting that “breadth of knowledge.”
After President Diamond, someone, who I believe was one of the professors at the school, started talking about the programs in the Faculty of Design. Now, I suppose this is standard of any info session, but really, this is all really basic stuff that you can easily look up online and, in fact, probably has been researched by 95% of the students there because they applied for the friggin’ program! Tell us something we don’t know!
The only thing I actually was mildly interested in during this portion was the mini slideshow of projects and finished works. Now the issue here is that, once again, they are hung up on their alumni. Yes, so-and-so was able to create some great thing and he/she happened to graduate from OCAD. But you know what students really want to see? STUDENT WORK! Looking at the work from these accomplished alumni was okay and all, but when the student work finally came up, they just zoomed right by it. I can’t speak for the entire room, but if there’s any artwork I’d like to see in that presentation, it would be examples of what current students are able to create at this institution.
A small thing I would also like to note is that during this entire presentation, the professor kept wandering away from the podium and the mic, causing the sound to cut in and out. A student also asked a question about a particular program and, while the point of this event is to find out more information, there’s no need to have a conversation between the two of you when you have an auditorium filled with people waiting to get on with the presentation.
After this professor, another one came up to speak about the Faculty of Liberal Studies. This was an utter waste of time. Why was it necessary for you to go on the course calender and pick random courses to only read their course description? Also, why was it necessary for you to go on the list of faculty and pick them out to only briefly explain what they teach before going on to the next one? How about discussing the required Liberal Studies courses that first year students have to take and what they’re about?! This was probably the most half-assed part of the entire event.
Ironically, the next speaker was someone who, if I remember correctly, is but a humble manager of the labs and studios at the school. He gave the best presentation of all. He was informative, funny, and organized. What he said was actually interesting and relevant to what we needed to know. No complaints here.
After that though, I had enough and left the auditorium. I wanted to tour the school a bit but I was already stuck in there for over an hour’s worth of crap and so I briefly walked around the Sharp Centre before heading out with a couple of my friends.
Overall, it was disasterous and very disappointing. This stupid, poorly-organized presentation made me seriously question whether OCAD was right for me at all. And honestly, it’s a little concerning when a school so focused on communication isn’t able to do that very well. I don’t know if I was spoiled by the “professionalism” at Mac, but this was a failure of a first impression and I hope that this will be amended later for both my sake and theirs. I can tell you right now that if they want to present themselves as a “real university,” this is not the way to do it.