Academics

All the teachers like to be called by their first name and are pretty friendly. Freshman year you have your foundations class which is 4 hours long, either in the morning or afternoon, and also a writing class once a week and art history twice a week.

The studios are open 'til 1am except for mid terms and the end of the first semester when they're open until 3am. The foundations building itself has many good-sized classrooms for the class sizes, which is about 13-15 students. You'll want to get to know your studio buddies 'cause you'll be spending a lot of time working together and in crit.

Your first semester in foundations is split 3 ways between observational, design, and 3D- each studio does them at different times. The teachers have a lot of flexibility over what they think each section means, with some classes making cardboard boxes and drawing them for weeks on end. Lots of people come in with very specialized skills for the major they want to go in, but foundations gets everyone to learn some important basic skills for all those areas. There is also a woodshop workshop where they will have you make a stool using all of the tools in the shop, which is quite a lot. You do get an entire Adobe package from the school, so you get Photoshop for free! Plus all the school computers have it and Word. Second semester is also split up three ways, but you have a different teacher for each and you get to choose things you are more interested in, such as ceramics, calligraphy, architecture, photography, etc.

Most people (depending on their schedule) have no classes on thursday, which gives you some much needed time to work on projects from your studio class or some of those big essays.

The professors and academic advisers that I have encountered have always encouraged me to work harder. If you slack or get a low letter grade on a test or exam then they normally send you an email stating that there are ways to help improve the grade and get what you want. The foundation teachers want you to work hard in studio and can tell how long you worked or if it was a last minute thing. Everything counts at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Studio classes aren't you're run-of-the-mill high school art intro courses; they're rigorous, demanding, and sometimes infuriatingly difficult. Professors will have you working your rear off to finish assignments in time, as well as teaching you valuable art lessons ,all the while improving your personal artistic style as a whole.