I went to a very famous art school in the US. Each class had a 4 absence policy – once you had a 5th absence, you either had to drop the class, or automatically failed. There were NO excused absences. I know of people who got hit by a bus on the way to class and still crawled their way there – a friend of mine had to miss her mom's funeral because she couldn't afford to stay in school another quarter. I was hospitalized and missed a few classes, and had to retake an entire quarter. This was to “prepare us for the working world”.
What sucks is that we all thought this was totally normal for the longest time!! When I was an RA at the school (I quit after a few months), I remember telling my residents that this was a GOOD thing because it prepared us for our lives post-graduation. All it did was burn everyone out – forcing yourself to go to class when you're sick, so you can safe absences for an emergency, or looking down on others for missing classes for reasons like mental or physical illness. One year, we had FIVE people commit suicide in TWO weeks because they were so overworked. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
“If you were a REAL artist, you'd be here.” “Art is suffering.” “Oh, you sleep at night? You go out for fun semi-regularly? You aren't a REAL artist.”
My school was constantly telling us that if we didn't get a job right out of school, that was our fault, because they tried everything for us (they didn't). My career advisors had no idea what they were doing. Most of my friends who graduated didn't get a job right out of school, and feel like failures because of it. Those who did got their jobs through family connections. I barely make it as a freelancer, and I was working in coffee shops and restaurants for years after I graduated. I felt like a failure, because these jobs burned me out even more. I worked 60+ hour weeks, could barely afford to pay rent, and then didn't have the time or energy to draw.
It took me a solid three years to even start to enjoy art again. The grind culture was disgusting – you have to post something every day, and you can only post things you spend a lot of time on. You have to constantly cater your social media presence to the algorithm so you can get work.
I hate that I spent so much money at school just to lose my enjoyment of art. I hate that so many of my fellow artists are struggling with the same thing. “Prepare us for the real world”… Whatever.
I can't believe I paid so much money to just hate myself even more. I could write an essay on how fucked up this school was… I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life, and for what?