So I'm at an impasse here in my life. Happy valentines day for those reading this the day it's written, but for those not, this post is full of rage and sadness. So please, feel free to click away to one of my funny fanfics on this blog.
So as many of you know, I am currently attending the Art Institute of Atlanta. Originally I was at the Atlanta-Decatur campus. I transferred over to the Atlanta campus for a few reasons.
1. They were closing the Decatur campus.
2. They were offering a grant for transferring over to the Atlanta campus.
3. I had a teacher constantly sending me to the internet to teach me how to use the program he was supposed to be teaching me for that class. This is probably the most important reason that I transferred over. I just wanted to get far away from that teacher as possible.
So the Atlanta campus is a lot different than the Decatur campus. It's 2 hours away from my home by Marta compared to Decatur's 45 min to 1 hour Marta travel time. A lot of their equipment is older then what was at Decatur. Not to mention, if you want food you have to either walk 15 minutes to Costco or get on your car and drive some where or get on Marta and go over a station to get the mall for food.
when I first got to the Atlanta campus, they had a subway in the student lounge. So during the two hour period between my classes, I could get dinner really quick and go work on school work. However, that closed about 2 quarters in to me being there.
Sure they have two "Restaurants" on the 5th floor run by the culinary department. But they're over priced and I'm not sure if they have students working there and if they're getting paid for it.
In fact, I got a turkey sandwich from there once and the turkey wasn't cooked enough. The meat was pink in the middle. I got diarrhea from this burger for 4 days afterwards thanks to it. So I haven't gone back there once since then.
Another problem I encountered is that I told to have at least two different types of work at AiAD that were connected. For example, my boyfriend was originally doing 3d modeling and 3d animation because the AiAD department head said he was good at that and encouraged him to put it in his portfolio. The heads here only want you to do one thing and one thing only. Because I was going to do 2d animation and typographies. But when faced with only one ruled, I switched to typographies because I have more passion for that.
Later though I was put in a class and the teacher told me I couldn't because I wasn't a Motion Graphics student. He said I can only do either 2d or 3d animation because I'm an Animation student. However, my program reads Media Arts and Animation. So I don't know what's up with this guy.
Also that whole "Go to the internet to learn this thing I want you to do in this program" has been happening again by another teacher. I call him Mr. Bio. I'm not the only one who has problems with this teacher. Almost all of the Students have problems with him.
He has come to class and told us we needed to make a blog to go along with our assignment and that it was do that day. It was the first time any of us had heard about it. It also wasn't written on any of the of the papers for the project, I checked. He just thought of it and told us like he had told us forever ago as if he could just sweep it under the rug.
Another issue is He told me I needed to use fills for the backgrounds in Toon Boon, the program we have to use for the project. When I asked him how to create fills in the program, he just told me to look it up instead of showing me. He sent me to the internet to do his job. Why am I even paying to come here if you're just going to send me to the internet to learn?
like wtf?
I actually emailed the school counselor had had been in touch with because I have had suicidal thoughts. Which by the way, this school brought those back for me. But I emailed her about my issues and concerns only to find out she no longer worked at AiA. So I emailed another women she put me in contact with. She told me I needed to contact someone else but never gave me that person's contact info. She actually got me confused with another student who already had the other person's contact information. So after we got that confusion squared away, she forwarded my email to the other person. That was Monday, it's Tuesday night and I have yet to hear from this 3rd person. At all.
it's kind of headache inducing.
I feel like I'm falling through the cracks here. For the first time in my life I'm reaching out for help and no one is there. I remember in elementary, middle, and high school, there was a teacher that pulled me aside at least once or twice to ask if I was ok. One actually asked if I was suicidal. I lied and told her no because I felt shame because of it. Like if you admit to it, you're broken and not even tape can fix you.
But here, I'm finally asking for help. I'm finally asking questions and it seems like they just want me to shut up and get into some hive mind little march. I try to speak and I just shut down with go look it up or you need to talk to so and so.
It's frustrating, depressing, and rage inducing.
I've begun fantasizing about jumping on the train tracks and walking into the lights of a moving train.
That's what this school has done to me. It's brought back my suicidal thoughts and made it worse.
Today I read the Email about how the Art Institute of Atlanta didn't meet the Gainful Employment standard and that basically of they don't meet it by the next time they take it, federal student loans won't work there. The only way I'm able to go to that school is because of grants and loans.
Now the reason I chose to go to AiAD is because out of the 3 colleges I looked at for animation in Georgia, they were the cheapest. I wanted to stay in Georgia because I was afraid to move out of state without family. I was also fresh from high school. Well actually still in high school when I was enrolled for AiAD.
To be honest most of the stuff I learned was basic stuff I had read in books or online. About the only thing that really happened was I learned after effects and some of Toon Boom.
the only really good thing about going to AiAD and AiA was that I meet a lot of people (Students). One gave me a bunch of programs that I use often. One was an old friend from Middle school that I'm reacquainted with now. Another is my Patron on Patreon and good friend. Another is my boyfriend is also a student.
I got a job at the mall by AiA because since I had such a large gap between classes, I began walking around the mall with my friends. I saw a now hiring sign and applied. So now I have a job that I actually really enjoy. So I'll be thankful for the location of the school for that.
but to be honest, in that school, there is no place to really work there. There are 5 floors and all the labs with computers always have classes in them. There is really no open lab for us to work in when we need to. The only places you can really sit when you don't have class at that school is the lounge and the room with light tables in it. Which would be great if anyone of the teachers gave assignments that required you to use them. I normally sit in that room because it's normally fairly quiet with other students hanging out there.
it's just awful going there. I thought it was just normal school bs, so I bit my tongue and bore it but after watching videos of other former students of Ai talking about their experiences, I realized, it's not ok. My feelings of nervous apprehensions aren't wrong.
I know I only have portfolio production and portfolio left, but at the same time, do I really want to waste more of my time and money?
I was originally in portfolio production this quarter only to have the teacher, Mr. Bio, tell me that I work "Too slow" to be in that class, so I had to drop it and take a different class.
so now I'm sitting here contemplating if I wavy to drop out of this hell hole of a school or stay and struggle through and try to not commit suicide because of the stress brought on by this school.
that's all I can think to write right now. If you have any advice let me know in the comments.
Hugs,
Krissie
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