British student wants to study in North America

February 29, 2008 1:59 PM

I'm half way through my first year at Winchester School of Art and I'm already getting a little bored with Winchester. I've always wanted to spend some time studying in Canada or the US but I'm not sure how to go about it. I've looked into WSA's student exchange program but it looks like the only link they have in America is for fashion students (I'm doing graphics). Do I have any other options?
posted by Andy Harwood to education (4 comments total)

Are you asking what other exchanges etc you could do that would yield credits at Winchester? To answer that question you should speak to a dean for study abroad (or other relevant administrator) of the school, since it will be an internal policy matter whether they'll accept other exchanges that they don't list.

Or are you asking about transferring to a school in the US or Canada? Ie, are you asking what schools are available?
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:38 PM on February 29

Both I guess. I don't know anything about studying abroad and I want to know what my options are.
posted by Andy Harwood at 3:16 PM on February 29

I would speak to your school's exchange officer (or whatever the equivalent is) about exchanges for credit.

A few of the best design schools in the US are (IIRC) Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, pronounced RIZ-dee), Parsons (in NYC), The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm sure there are more major ones I'm not thinking of. Full tuition at any of these will be quite expensive.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:42 PM on February 29

Well, uh, I'm not sure exactly what information you want, but as for Canadian schools, the following have good reputations (although I'm not sure about graphics, specifically), in roughly descending order:

NSCAD
Emily Carr Institute
OCAD

York, despite boasting about it's "fine arts" department, has a crap reputation; Concordia is known to be pretty decent, but isn't as focused on arts as any of the above, being that it's a relatively well-rounded university, not a college/institute.

As for 'in the least boring location,' it's probably OCAD (Toronto, Canada's biggest city) or Emily Carr (Vancouver).

The benefits of going to Canada is: even with the foreign students tuition screw-over, it will be cheaper than going to the States. In Ontario right now, the average province for provincial residents is anywhere from 5000 to 7000 dollars for ever two semesters; for foreign students, it's 16 000. Contrast this with reports of tuition going for well over 25 000 US dollars/year for some American art students. And this was back when the American dollar was still strong, meaning that the discrepancy is even higher than than you'd think.

Go talk to the exchange admin at your college. It will help.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 9:36 PM on February 29