Academics

SAIC doesn't have majors. Can't decide on what to study? Do it all! This school encourages students to combine disciplines in all their classes and make connections between different areas of creation. SAIC also doesn't have grades. All courses are pass / fail (credit / no credit). SAIC is not a competitive environment like RISD. If you want to work with others, but don't want to compete with them, this place is for you. SAIC is great for people who want to study design areas and art technology, but it's not very fine-arts heavy. Very conceptual subjects, particularly the fashion department.

Fiber and Material Studies students have access to floor looms, TC-1 and TC-2 Digital Jacquard Looms, sewing and knitting machines, dye and screen printing facilities, feltmaking equipment, and a computer lab. Visual Communication Design department facilities include large screen monitors, resource room, fully equipped letterpress and type shop, SAIC Service Bureau -providing binding, papers, and large format printing- and graduate studios. Contemporary Practices department for first year students has an instructional shop with hand and floor-mounted power tools staffed by technicians to provide advice and training, and a Media Center to check out tools and equipment reserved exclusively for Contemporary Practices students. For Film, Art&Tech, and Sound, highlights of specialized equipment specific to media departments include advanced HD editing suites, shooting studios, green screen cyclorama studio, space for the creation of experimental virtual reality environments, high-end graphics labs for 3D modeling and animation, high-quality analog and digital mixers, and rare signal processors. SAIC's sculpture department features digital fabrication areas, a woodshop, metal shop, foundry, mold-making shop, 3D visualization, and outdoor organic garden, facilitating site-based projects, metal casting, mold-making, figure studies, sustainable and science-related projects. Cerami...

the academic environment is challenging, but also driven by self-motivation. you're only going to get what you put into it. expect to spend a lot of time in the studio and doing a lot of personal research.

Being a student not attending the school yet, I can say that I wouldn't be the most appropriate person to look to answers for this question.

To do well at this school requires an agonizing amount of work. However, it is possible to get by doing almost no work. You will get out of this what you put in.