I made it through my first year at the Art Institute Online. Along the way I encountered many bumps and roadblocks, but as in any educational situation, these are bound to happen. I started out at a traditional college, Central Michigan University, but found that the politics of getting into the Graphic Design program didn’t appeal to me. I decided that, as a non traditional student, an online education made more sense as far as my lifestyle.
This is the case with many students at the Art Institute Online. Most people find that the promise of a college education in the comfort of their own home is very appealing, and it is. However, before you decide that the Art Institute is right for you, let me delve deeper into the pros and cons of this online environment.
First, some good news. At the Art Institute Online the classes are set up so you can log in whenever and wherever you have internet access. Yes, you can go to school in your jammies, hair in utter disarray, and nobody is any wiser to the fact that you haven’t had your first cup of coffee yet. However, there are requirements for each class as far as online time. Assignments are due on certain days during the week and you do have to log in 4 of the 7 days in order to get participation points. If you are thinking “oh, that’s easy!”, keep in mind that participation is exactly that…participating.
It isn’t enough just to log in. You have to participate in a meaningful way. This does not include just turning in your assignment either. This means that you have to respond to your classmates in a thoughtful, educational manner. Sometimes I have found this to be quite difficult, especially in subjects where an answer is either correct or incorrect, such as mathematics. It’s really difficult to expand upon “your answer is correct” or “you got the same answer as I did”. It’s much easier when people make mistakes, but let’s face it, we don’t really want to see our classmates failing.
Let’s talk about grading for a moment. Grading varies widely from instructor to instructor. What one might consider really good participation, another will consider absolute rubbish. You have to get a feel for the individual instructor and this is sometimes really hard to do in the condensed 5 1/2 week sessions. By the time you realize that the instructor isn’t a good fit for your learning style, it is usually too late to drop the course. Thats not to say all instructors are bad ones. From my experience, all the instructors are experts in their field and many work in the field that they teach. This gives the students an awesome opportunity to get inside the heads of industry professionals, and also leads to good contacts as well.
The 5 1/2 week courses…what to say about those. It’s exciting. It’s fast paced. It’s absolutely insane at times. I do like the fact that because of the shortened period of learning time that it seems I’m always learning something new. I don’t have enough time to get bored or grow stagnant in a course, and this is good. The accelerated pace really forces me to be creative and simulates real world scenarios where deadlines are tight. There are disadvantages, of course, and one of those I mentioned before in not being able to get to know the instructor in a timely fashion. Another is stress.
A full time student takes 2 courses per session for a total of 4 courses per semester. 2 courses at a time might not seem like much but consider that a full 9 week course is being taught in half the time. Every week there is at least one major project due plus all of the preparation for that project. For two classes, that is two major projects each week plus prep time, plus discussion questions, plus participation. It’s an awful lot of work at times. The 5 1/2 week course also butt up against each other so the second session starts in the middle of the week. In all the classes, projects are due according to a day (day 1, day 2, day 3, etc….). So during the first session the days of the week coincide with a real calendar (Sunday = day 1), while during the second session day 1 is Thursday. It was confusing at first but I got used to it.
The classes themselves are challenging, but limited. It is up to the instructor, not the school, to provide links in the online lectures to help you better understand the material or to supplement your learning. The classes also rely very heavily upon the online lectures and participation and very little upon the required textbooks. This is both a plus and a minus. First, in the heavy participation requirements, there is the benefit of learning from your peers. I cannot tell you, unless you have experienced it yourself, how liberating this is. The instructors are there to facilitate rather than teach in a traditional sense. It is through the interaction with your peers that you actually do most of your learning.
The instructor points you in the right direction and lets you go. The conversations can be lively and informative and fun. The problem is that the sometimes very expensive textbooks are under utilized. I was required one semester to purchase a math book. The instructor for this particular class made up his own problems and never used the book at all. The classes are also limited to how much an instructor cares to participate with the class. Without guidance, a class is likely to get concepts completely wrong. This is a rare case, however, and I have found that most of the instructors are pretty hands on with the students. Most classes are small as well, with 10 – 20 students. It allows you a chance to get to know your classmates.
Getting to know anyone in a 5 1/2 week period is rough, however. The wonderful thing about the internet is that I’ve found people feel more free to vocalize. In a face to face situation, these people might be shy or unsure of themselves. In an online environment, we have only the words and art work to judge our peers by. This also can lead to misunderstandings as some people create a persona that is nothing like their real life counterpart. It’s hard to make lasting friendships in an online environment because the classes are so fast paced that you just are getting to know someone when classes are changed. It’s not impossible to run into people that you’ve seen in another class, but these instances are few and far between.
The asynchronous classes do give you a lot of flexibility, but working on group projects is a nightmare. It would be easy if everyone was in class at the same time but if you have a question for a classmate, you could be waiting up to 48 hours depending on their personal schedules when they log in. The same thing goes for questions for the professor. Sometimes you cannot get an answer as quickly as you need it. However, most professors see this flaw in the design of the online environment and readily offer phone numbers and personal emails for quicker responses.
The Art Institute Online is not for everyone. If you don’t have stellar organizational skills, aren’t self motivated, need constant feedback, are impatient, and don’t like to type, then the Art Institute Online is probably not for you. However, if you thrive on fast paced challenges, like the convenience of attending class at odd hours of the night, are self-reliant and have the patience of a saint, the Art Institute Online offers you a unique educational opportunity. I know that, for me, the education that I have gained through attending the Art Institute Online has been beyond my expectations. I hope this guide has been a help to you in deciding whether or not the Art Institute Online is right for you as well.
