Road Trip: Florida's Ringling College of Art and Design
We toured four Florida schools and found out what it's like to attend them
Students at Ringling College of Art and Design take classes in painting studios, not lecture halls. They spend a year creating computer-animated films instead of writing research papers. And you're more likely to see them drawing in sketchbooks with pencils than poring over textbooks with highlighters. Ringling isn't a traditional liberal arts college, but most of its students, from illustrators to graphic designers, thrive on its quirkiness.
Ringling's campus, a few miles north of downtown Sarasota, houses about 70 percent of the small school's undergraduates. The area's white-sand beaches are a big draw for students, but so are the many local art galleries and theaters as well as the symphony, opera, and ballet.
Can you get a job after art school? Ringling says yes. More than 1.25 million Americans work in the visual arts today, and Ringling President Larry Thompson—a man on a mission to dispel the idea of the starving artist—expects more than 10 percent growth in the industry in the next five years. Ringling's Center for Career Services invites an impressive list of recruiters to campus each year, including Hallmark, Pixar, and Reebok.
Pixar and DreamWorks have hired about 40 Ringling graduates since the early '90s, and the walls of the computer animation department are lined with posters for movies such as Toy Story, Shrek, and The Incredibles, films on which Ringling alumni have worked. Many students say the industry connections are why they chose the school in the first place, and they, too, are bullish about their job prospects.
"Everything has the touch of an artist on it, and people don't even realize," says third-year illustration major Reed Bond. "Art school graduates are not just up in their parents' attics eating paint. They're going to work, too."
More About Ringling College
Plus factor: It's a digital world, so every student gets a free MacBook upon enrollment.
Undergrad enrollment, fall '08: 1,229
Est. annual cost, 2008-09: $44,280
Florida Road Trip
- Bethune-Cookman University
- Ringling College of Art and Design
- University of Florida
- University of Central Florida
Searching for a college? Get our America's Best Colleges 2010 complete rankings.
Reader Comments
RCAD ?
I am currently attending Ringling, I have been to RCAD also. I just want to say if you want a quality education Ringling is the way to go. RCAD was dissapointing and felt as though everyone hated being there. I also felt as though the classes were so easy I was wasting my money. Yes Rigling is expensive, but you pay for what you get. Do you pay for a crappy education where you wont get a job, or do you pay for the best education and have a great job?
think about it
Amado / Ringling
I completely respect the people and education I received at Ringling. It did prepare me for the future. I am a better artist because of it. Yet I was one class short of graduating with my Computer Animation Degree. While right there in the home stretch, I was bankrupt. Completely bankrupt from the whole thing. Did not have the financial support nor high paying jobs in Sarasota to finish the last mile. Tried to work day and night and do my studies to finish, yet in 1999, my credits cards were maxed out, and had to call it quits. It was a very sad time for me, like buzz lightyear falling from the second floor stairs " Not a flying toy" I am thankful of the educational growth I received at Ringling. I have pursued my academic career and have not let my initial fall stop me. I am receiving a masters in Engineering Management at Florida International University and will begin my PhD work next year. I wish I could have finished Ringling. A part of my life that has always seemed unfinished even with the many goals and dreams that have been fullfilled. Congratulations go out to all those Ringling students which have had the opportunity to attend and grow. Congratulations to you :)
Respectfully yours,
Amado Gonzalez
Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum
College of Engineering and Computing
Florida International University
http://gsl.eng.fiu.edu/Amado/
Jobs out of Ringling
I just graduated from Ringling this past year and have had incredible success in finding a job, thanks to Ringling's great connections in the art world. So what if your friends and family think you are attending clown school... What really counts is the fact taht EVERYONE in the art and entertainment industry know how great of a school Ringing is and what kind of work Ringling grads are able to produce. I will agree with the comments above, that art school is not for everyone, and you have to be very self motivated to produce good work, otherwise you will not make it through Ringling, not to mention be very unsuccessful at getting a job. Think of the best artists at your high school. Were you one of them? Then put all those great artists into an art school, and double the skill level... that's Ringling. I pushed myself and was only getting a max of 3 hours of sleep a night for months on end. Not only to you have to refine your talent and skills, you have to be willing to put in the time required to make your artwork the best. It was not very healthy, but I would gladly do it again if I had to because my experience at Ringling could not be replicated by any other school. It was a fabulous one and I am thankful for it. My thesis film was highly decorated and has won major awards. Now that I'm out in the real world, everyone is extremely complimentary of Ringling's computer animation undergraduate degree because it rivals most, if not all graduate degree programs in this field. I would not be where I am today without the dedicated professors and staff of the Ringling College of Art and Design.
I am currently working as an artist at DreamWorks Animation, living my dream of making movies.
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