#degree plan tag

[spectral-honey]

AU where Jason gets his revenge by becoming a lawyer and getting joker sentenced to the death penalty

Bruce is conflicted about it but any time he tries to say anything on the subject Alfred just talks over him like "oh we're so proud of you master Jason you finished college and you didn't even use your father's extensive resources that could've easily gotten someone in this family a degree aren't we so proud master Bruce that Jason got himself a respectable profession--"

#jason todd #red hood #batfam #i also think it would be funny if thats literally the only thing jason does as a lawyer after that he just goes back to being a vigilante #everyone on the internet is like 'the iconic career of jason todd wayne: came back from the dead got a college degree got the joker- #-sentenced to death (finally) and then immediately fucked off to do whatever the hell it is he does for fun' #any time bruce and jason disagree jasons like 'excuse me which one of us is the college drop out and which of us is a practicing attorney?' #alfred 'you could have been a doctor but you became a furry themed vigilante instead' will never let this go #also btw jason just stole reasources from the league to get thru college. maybe at first talia was like what & then jason was like #'my alternate plan was to either get bruce to kill the joker or kill all three of us in an explosion' and talia is like #'okay. have fun at school sweetie' #BTW AN EDIT: this post is not reflective of my IRL beliefs about the criminal justice system or the death penalty #IRL those are way more complicated than gotham city/the joker/jason make it out to be #saw a few people tagging this post mentioning stuff about that

[dollya-robinprotector]

Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly You're my doll, rock'n'roll, feel the glamour in pink Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky~

Inspired from This post of @just-dol-headshots and this ask from @hakusins. Don't worry I'm still aiming for your ass Haku-Dean :) References and something under the cut

We all have to agree Bully Robin should have some softer and caring sides. When there's only them two and no one else is around to judge, he can let loose and slip back into that kinda of "Original Robin" we know and I love. I mean, that's what JDOLH made that got me into these swap messes from the beginning jsjkhskjhd you knowww the HUG!!

Reference: Barbie Girl (Aqua) and this cute ecchi Clamp Chobit piece

All in all I'm a pink bietch and Dollya won't be losing her V-card anytime soon that I can promise so hang in there okay mr.Bully.

edit: OMG THIS IS MY 1000TH POST TTOTT)) JKSDJLASKJKDLA

SELF-INDULGENT HERE WE GO

#Warning: rant in tags #dollya art #robin the orphan #dol robin #robin the bully #swap robin #swap au #DoL swap AU #Just Dollya herself #degrees of lewdity #dol #pinkcore #pink aesthetic #I don't know man I still can't decide the title for Dollya and “the Weeb” is kinda not very cute eventhough I like it #I'm enjoying this SO FREAKING MUCH I lose track of time and want to draw so many fucking things for it #I have “Plans” for Bully Robin don't worry he will get backstory as well as character development #Dark or light I can't promise I will work with JDOLH and maybe Hakusin too to build this AU #I want to put work into this you understand me? #AAAAAAAAAA THE IDEAS KEEP COMING I hate this yet I love it #What else to tag oh right #yumejoshi #yumeship #I LOVE to draw pink so fucking much #I love pink #I want to draw more pink

[bigmammallama5]

do you ever just. yeah.

#arting #good thing its friday night and im only planning to work like 30 more minutes or so #it has been a weird week and i get to go roast and split logs at the wood kiln tomorrow in nearly 90 degrees #pots pots pots pots pots pots EVERYBODAAY #oh look a self portrait for the first time in 80 years #whatever #maybe ill doodle some soopercorrrp as a cool down in a bit #i got a bizza from the deli and im gonna add so much cheese and extra basil #a hydroPONIC basil thats gonna live in my bedroom for indirect light and smell delicious 24/7 #maybe i wont kill it #poor basil #you were only four bucks i hope you survive #also yes can you tell in my art that my physical therapy also includes correcting my posture #look at how nice my posture looks LMAO #ok thats enough #have a good weekend everyone #these tags are as long and as odd as iguanamouth's #man i love iguana's art i hope they're doing fantabulous

[lesbiradshaw]

three shots in trying to figure out what bradley was planning on doing with his poli sci degree if getting in the navy didn’t pan out

#(as someone who also has a poli sci degree) #he does nawt have the personality of a politician AT ALL #usually w psci majors its either public service or a predecessor for law school #which i can see more but like. bradley would have gotten one semester in and realized he fucking hates it i feel like 😭 #mr ‘i have to raise my voice when i argue so they dont notice it shaking’. hes kinda just like me #ik OCS requires at least a bachelors degree but poli sci is so random to make yourself look like a better candidate LMFAOOOO #i really think he was planning on law school as a back up for the navy and probably had a minor in like history or something #he would be the type to take military history and international relations classes. #in my head hes a psci major w a history minor that takes social work classes on the side #which is partially my own self projection but also i think he would make a good social worker with the way he grew up #anyways. sorry for the rambling in the tags (not really) #Hi if you made it all the way down here #i love bradley so much. can you tell. #carolcore

[unopenablebox]

i'm fighting demons but the demon is making biweekly posts about how perfect 🌸 is

#i hear your objection but right now those posts are weekly at MOST. #girlfriend tag #box opener #does everyone else have really good impulse control to only say things online that have content or are interesting #or is the intense degree of my interest in and emotional responses to my girlfriend itself some kind of weird problem unique to me #they're just. so charming and great. yesterday i got really excited #because after about two hours of being apart i walked to the location where i had arranged to meet them #and they were there‚ in the location. #not like doing anything. we didn't have plans. they were wearing a jacket? and sitting on a ledge swinging their legs cutely? #but i also sometimes get that excited if they're just standing still and not wearing a jacket. so idk. #i know other people have blogs and also partners they like! am i just discovering that i lack the facet of self-discipline that everyone #else uses to avoid inventing the tumblr version of a wife guy

[samarecharm]

Akira being like, obsessed w loyalty, but having it as a positive(ish) trait is so fun to me. He doesnt outright say it or ever ask for it, but theres like an unspoken bond between the thieves and himself. He asks for it (demands, really) because he gives it in return. Its the classic ‘ride or die’ mentality; he demands trust and loyalty bc he 100% trusts his team. He would not have baited himself into what would be considered his literal death if he was not COMPLETELY and UTTERLY faithful to his team and the cause. He trusted them to fulfill their end of the bargain no matter how difficult that wouldve been for them. And because of their mutual faith in each other, leader to team and team to leader, they all managed to make it out and live another school year.

He has very little regard for his life but hes not necessarily reckless. Hes calculated. And while hes a bit out of sorts in the beginning with all of these new ideas and concepts, he quickly finds his footing later in the year. And bc he is assembling a team of people who are loyal to Him, he can afford to be loyal right back to them. He can afford to be risky if the risk is mitigated by having his team follow up on his actions. This team has to run like a well oiled machine; any hiccups will get the rest of the team caught or worse; hurt or killed.

Ryuji inadvertently sets this trend, bc he is Ride or Die at heart and he somewhat influences Akira on this matter. And its why he is so reluctant to truly incorporate Goro onto the team (at first). Goro IMMEDIATELY clocks Akiras leadership as something heavier than simply ‘i lead this group to keep everyone on the same page’, but he wrongly assumes Akira has some sort of Thing about power. Theres no real power trip; he is not okay with limiting his teams voices on any matter. His ideas are not the end all, be all of any plan; hes Not Shido. I can imagine how tough Saes Palace was for everyone, but they needed to have unwavering faith in each other to pull off such a mindblowing plan.

I dunno where else im going w this, i just like thinking of Goro feeling some kinda way about Akira (and the thieves) unanimously declaring him as the leader of the thieves fully knowing what shady things theyve done up until this point. Someone who claims to change peoples hearts is deciding who gets to keep their free will or not, and to have a team basically say ‘yes hes our leader and we would die for him’ does NOT look good to anyone! Especially to someone who is quite literally killing people on behalf of someone Very Bad! Who then Dies for it!

#he is my little meow meow and a litte fucked up actually #goro would never want to be completely loyal to anyone #he follows his own rules #but like akira still trusts him? and it makes him so fucking upset #like how dare you act like im predictable #like i would just blindly follow you like an obedient dog #but he still trusts goro #and he still includes him in plans and hangout meetings #bc he fucking knows what his team is capable of #and their loyalty to him; and his loyalty to them #means that literally any wrong move would have goro dead like no joke #i say this as an avid goro lover and applogist #but if he literally killed Any of the thieves he himself would be dead very shortly after #and to some degree goro knows this #and it makes him a bit (alot) bitter and angry but also like #this is the life he chose yeah? #and like SO WHAT if he listens in a bit more at meetings? #and SO WHAT if ryuji invites him to eat with the rest of them Just Because #and SO WHAT if Akira loudly; with his whole being; acknowledge that he Wants Goro to be with them #and having that mean that he would be completely 100% loyal with Goro #and wouldnt die for him bc he Knows thats not what Goro would want #but would do it only if he absolutely must #and SO WHAT if that means he too is being read like an open book no matter how insistent he is that his pages are sown shut #to hear yusuke say ‘no i do not think that would be wise; goro would agree’ and have him ACTUALLY be right like fuck off #fuck right the fuck off ! #you dont get to know me im unknowable !!!!!!!!!!!!! #tagging as #akeshu #shuake #bc like i want to find it again

[lewditydegreeblog]

This picrew again but with the school LIs + Alex part 3

Alternative pic for Robin 💕

#degrees of lewdity #robin the orphan #whitney the bully #kylar the loner #sydney the faithful #sydney the fallen #alex the farmhand #picrew tag #sydney's pics are based on that one scene where they peek on PC in the changing room #Alex's pic is based on a scene I've read about where PC can peek on them while they're showering #(I haven't played alex's route yet but I plan to eventually)

[serethereal]

genuinely obsessed w learning what my mutuals study/studied in uni it’s always like WHAT and then oh…

#one of the v ​first dms me and katy ever exchanged was tlaking ab our degrees + life plan and. i wouldn’t have it any other way tbh.. #like. i guess that does make sense… and now i am even more in awe of you… #ridi tag #(<- inspired this post) #katy tag #(<- bc i remembered our dms. and hi katy ily)

[arthur-r]

as usual i am up late into the night planning my future when i should be: getting a good nights sleep so that i even have a future!!

#i have work in seven and a half hours. so i should really be getting to bed #BUT i officially made my final definitive degree plan!!!! i mean not the actual classes but all the requirements i have to meet and how!! #(in order to earn: history and information science double major. with certificates in material culture and classics) #and i’m genuinely excited for every single class i have to take except for human-computer interaction #just cause i know it’s gonna get overly technical in ways that won’t quite apply to my future #anyway every single other thing i’m gonna do is very cool and exciting. so everything is good really #but i should be sleeping. and i’m not. as usual 🤧 #idk wish me luck!!!! i’m so hyped about my degree plan though #i’ll go into more detail another time. i’m very excited #ANYWAY goodnight!!!! can’t be so busy planning my future in library science that i DONT GO TO MY SHELVING JOB #kind of important to actually go to work for the library that employs me…. #and then i might go see a first-printing roget’s thesaurus!!!! or i’ll sleep. we’ll see #followed by lunch with GUY WHO IS THE WORST KILL HIM WITH HAMMERS #(there is nothing really wrong with me he just keeps kind of being mean to me and also expecting me to fall in love with him. but like #extremely passively and not manipulatively it’s just like. hey buddy you’re doing this friendship wrong….) #anyway then i have a class and after that i have an hour to rest. and then a phone call and then a lot of homework #(ten page paper draft due in a week and a half!! so it’s time to start writing the actual body of it) #and then i sleep for a LONG time and then work again on saturday. and then sleepover with somebody i have a crush on?? #and then be normal all day on sunday and do a little more paper writing. and programming homework. and whatever else #and then keep up with the slog for three weeks!!!! and all of a sudden it’s summer!!!! #projects left this year: material culture paper (entirely unstarted. but may research the thesaurus and just win!!!!) #history project (draft due the monday after next and real paper due a week after classes end) #one more programming assignment where i adapt my recipe doubler project (probably. it’s getting stupid at this point but it’s what i got!!) #and a programming test in two weeks and then the final a week after that. then no more programming #and then i just have my weekly latin tests and a latin final on may 5th. and then EVERYTHING IS DONE #ok i got this. sorry for walking through my schedule in the tags it’s how i remember what’s real #can’t believe my fucking partner just kind of walked out on me there hello???? like. we should be powering through finals together #but i’m genuinely better off without him so i guess it’s just whatever. trash took itself out or something?? #anyway. i’m so regular. and i have work in the morning. and i’m going to sleep #thank you world. goodnight

[spiritofjustice]

Ruby's post bringing up that Datz said Dhurke wasn't a hands-on parent is so interesting to me... i always got that vibe but it's nice to see it confirmed. because Dhurke seems like the type of guy who love, love, loves his kids to death, but isn't the best at knowing how to BE a parent-- and imagine it, being thrown in the life of a single father for TWO kids after traumatically losing his wife and having his whole life go to pieces while he's trying to juggle a fucking. rebellion. of course he'd be hands-off. i imagine the Dragons kind of raised their kids in a village sort of way, though Datz was at the forefront of helping raise Dhurke's kids for obvious reasons.

it strikes me that Nahyuta probably idolized Dhurke to some degree as a kid, and i think the distance probably encouraged that as well. Dhurke was a larger-than-life figure that Nahyuta probably doesn't know as well as he'd like despite everything, and while it made his dad intimidating, it's what made Yuta so passionate about wanting to help and follow in his father's footsteps-- and why it probably hurt so, so much when he wound up being corrupted by Ga'ran. Dhurke unconditionally loved his kids, but i imagine Yuta probably felt like he could never face his dad again.

jskdbfdsjk this family gives me brainworms dude.

#psy's no punctuation posts #aa tag #headcanons tag #also vindicated seeing Apollo say Yuta was quiet but passionate as a kid. exactly #i plan on replaying 6-3 and 6-5 after i finish replaying DGS2 cause i need a refresh on the Lore(tm)(r)(c) #also imagine that Dhurke being hands-off kinda makes me think it might also feed into Yuta's insecurity about being able to keep #loved ones in his life lol. Dhurke was always there but he also Wasn't to some degree you know what i mean

[cyrassol]

forcing myself to post a messy greyscale sketch because:

1. i've been stuck on a single art piece for over a week and needed a break

2. trying to forcibly make myself believe that art doesn't need to be perfect and that it's okay to post something without being happy with it and i need to be mediocre at shading and proportions and angles at first before i can become better and it's okay to just draw without first looking for a thousand references in order to have it be as pretty and correct as possible because making art is supposed to be fun

3. he really likes the rain

#he's also more punk than planned but fuck it this is me trying to not be perfectionist all the time #whitney the bully #dol whitney #dol fanart #degrees of lewdity fanart #degrees of lewdity #degrees of lewdity whitney #ugh i don't want to tag it #cyra attempts art #emphasis on fucking ATTEMPTS

[thecaduceusclay]

Ok so I havent had much of a chance to draft an LGBT history post focused on the 80s yet, but I know a lot of people expressed interest. Just to limit my scope I'm still gonna focus in on contextualizing stranger things with it, but I'm curious what would people find most useful in it?

My planned topics so far are: terminology (what words existed to describe yourself), symbols (what flags or other markers existed to flag your identity, usually subtly), attitudes (how was homophobia different), and major events (what would these kids have been seeing on the news?). Is there anything else people would love for me to cover?

#stranger things #robin buckley #will byers #byler #steveddie #steddie #mostly tagging those for reach on this apologies folks #ive seen a lot of people tagging stuff as period typical homophobia when im not even sure it was period typical for 2010 yknow? #id like to help yall with this stuff since its a literal part of my degree #like bisexual was just becoming a popular term! thats exciting! the 80s saw the emergence of the pink triangle as a symbol for activists! #sadly most of the events section is gonna be like...murders and the AIDS crisis #im also planning to focus majorly on 83-86 because those are the years stranger things is set in #but ill give surrounding context dont worry

[pepprs]

i thiiiink my headache is finally gone. at least i desperately fucking hope so

#purrs #i could’ve pushed through it but i didn’t and now i only have one day left of this three day weekend to pack / buy stuff for the trip / prep #the redacted / get some driving practice in and i have therapy today mid afternoon and didn’t finish my homework for it bc i was overthinkin #g what im supposed to do. but aughhh i haven’t even looked at restaurants yet i haven’t even started planning i haven’t even prepped my #sessions really but im so excited but also so scared and i haven’t thought ahead far enough and i still feel the ghost of the headache and I #im SO scared i’ll get another one or like train sickness (?) during the trip or be sleep deprived one way or another. asb was a nightmare #for me bc i couldn’t sleep and this time im also responsible for the group but nowhere NEAR to the same degree / loneliness so it should be #ok but it was so bad that im rly nervous to be in that same kinda position again… but hopefully it’ll be ok #conference tag #<- WILD to be using this in the present btw. i haven’t been to an in person one of these since 2019. and a lot has changed……

[bretongirlwrites]

tagged for a wip extract by @sheirukitriesfandom... here is julienne when she still thinks she wants to be an academic

There are better places for perfecting one’s university-application, than the growing tumult of a Bruma tavern: but few offer such fine drinks, for the intervals between increasingly half-formed sentences: and so Agnete and I hardly thought to look elsewhere, when at eighteen, the fancy took me to attend the Arcane University. I was still in my dreams of library-nooks and papers with colour illustrations, of shelves to the ceiling and infinite alchemical supplies with which to fumigate the Lustratorium, – but such dreams hardly provide the material for a formal letter, and so I must, into the foaming head of some drink I was too little Nordic for, invent things about myself to suit my intentions. Half an hour later, the tavern becoming busy, I felt quite as if I had fumigated myself: and gave up.

tagging anyone who wants to share :)

#breton girl writes #tag game #'invent things about myself to suit my intentions'... me writing personal statements for degrees i gave up on #anyway julienne abandons these plans when she realises that becoming a mercenary will allow her to blow up more ogres

[waywardsalt]

thinking abt linebeck’s coat. something very alluring about it for some reason. so im just gonna ramble about it here instead of in the tags for once

you can probably start a fight between the people who think it’s a coat and people who think it’s a jacket but i think it’s a coat moving on

the character designs are interesting to look at due to the proportions and art style so it is hard to imagine how long his coat would be but i think it would go down to a bit above ankles because i think that’s good. it’s a bit more dramatic a bit more impressive(?) that way and would probably lead to problems tbh

based on some of the official art i imagine that the stripe at the bottom might’ve been a late addition since it’s missing in the bit of official art most used to represent linebeck. tbh linebeck is inconsistent in very tiny ways in the official art but that’s mostly if you’re gonna be nit-picky or bored enough to notice

his coat is so good it’s simple but very recognizable and stands out among the other character designs in ph and its just. yknow good character design

its also surprisingly good for headcanons and stuff and because i mostly take a lot of canon as suggestion i have a good handful of headcanons tagged specifically onto his coat (one of which is the length of it ig)

i like to imagine that he made it himself. i’ve seen stuff where people write linebeck as being able to fix link’s tunic when it gets torn and i feel like the logical extreme of that is that he made his own coat. i think that adds a layer of. importance to it? it’s unique it’s solely linebeck’s it’s tied to him because he made it with his own hands and maybe it can represent something about him that way?

i like to imagine that in addition to the normal pockets one the outside he’s got a whole lot of little pockets on the inside of the coat, like so many pockets that he hides little trinkets or tools or things he steals in either to keep or to take back to his ship for whatever reason. some of the pockets have little flaps of whatever they’re called that can be secured in place with a small button to keep stuff in

he’s got like pencils and a compass and little notes and tiny figurines and cool rocks and feathers and all kinds of little things he thought was worth keeping around and due to that his coat is uncomfortable sometimes but if he knows for certain he’s going to be busy doing stuff he’ll empty out all of the pockets and only leave the important stuff so that it’s lighter and less uncomfortable. link finds his coat lying around at some point and is caught so badly off-guard by how surprisingly heavy it is with all of the bullshit he keeps in all of his pockets

i also imagine he values it a lot, maybe to the point of being really possessive and protective of it, not letting link touch it and if it gets torn or stained he shuts down and has to fix it before he can move on to anything else, and if he can’t fix it at the time it leave him kind of overwhelmed or upset until he can fix it. he has a lot stocked-up materials specifically for his coat to avoid a situation where he has to go for while with his coat damaged

backing away from headcanon territory, his coat is just a cool bit of character design and has just been lodged in my mind for a while. its cool and never brought up within the game (obviously) and i guess a last little closing thought is that in the cutscene where oshus teleports link above linebeck it kinda looks like his coat moves when he tries to catch link and i think that’s cool

#afraid of clogging ph tag so ill just tag this as #linebeck #character development not hiding in the tags this time #salty talks #this is how i talk on discord but i fear initiating social interaction so heres this #im in some kind if weird denial ever since that last totk trailer bc i think ive been lowkey constantly overwhelmed ever since seeing it #ugh. i miss linebeck. totk scares me and so does the fact that i cant get myself to be as excited as everyone else seems to be able to be #typing this was painful bc i turned off my autocorrect on my phone a while back bc it fucking sucked and now its like #man i am bad at typing on a phone holy SHIT #coat post thinking about linebeck helps me feel good. also projection he’s my go-to for projection when like anything happens #i imagine his coat as like. a comfort item to some degree. like it’s something he made himself and he’s had it for a very long time #like i have a comfort item or two of my own so its like. yeah i get how it feels to worry about it getting damaged or lost #so within the bounds of my ideas linebeck cares about his coat in a similar manner he does his ship. hes autistic abt both of them #his scarf falls into this category too but that actually has more actual backstory about it bc i can’t be normal about anything about him #still talking in the tags. oh well. im going to snap #i have planned a 17 chapter linebeck backstory. this is not related to that but i feel like its worth just. mentioning #i could probably make his coat represent some aspect of his identity if i wanted. like. maybe its a representation of what he really wants #i keep the coat in most au designs but the two au designs that dont have the coat are where linebeck’s identity is a bit fucked

[loregoddess]

Ok I'm curious, could you elaborate on art school education when you have the time?

Mainly because my friend went to art high school and feels she wasted all the years there while I've been self-teaching myself for a few months by just messing around, so I was wondering just how different the two approaches are :0

Oh, I have lots and lots of thoughts on art education. I do feel that I need to preface this with the whole "my experience is not universal", bc all my feelings about art and art education stem from my own experiences of being self-taught and then getting actual formal college degrees in art.

The shortest version of my long rant, under the cut, is that there isn't a superior way to learn art. With art education, you run the risk of getting bad teachers who don't teach the subject well, and you can also run into teachers who aren't open-minded about approaches to art that differ too much from their own--the flipside, of course, is that there are sometimes amazing teachers who can challenge you to try new things you'd never had thought of on your own, or who have already made a lot of mistakes that they can tell you about so you don't have to make them yourself. With being self-taught, you have to figure out everything on your own, and sifting through online tutorials or reading books can be difficult to find "actually useful and well-explained" advice, but you do also get the freedom of doing literally whatever you want and really focusing what you learn based on what you're actually interested in. Each has it's pros and cons, but neither is technically better or worse, per se, although education of any sort comes down a lot to each person's situation in life, as not everyone has access to education or even the tools for making art.

For the long, long expansion of my thoughts and some of my personal experiences with art education specifically...

In short, I'm technically entirely self-taught, despite holding two different art degrees. Aside from some feedback I got from my 8th grade art teacher (who had agreed to look at my hobby art in her own spare time outside of class), I basically taught myself to draw entirely on my own, using various "how to draw" books, online tutorials, and just a lot of general experimentation and continued drawing on my own. Which meant I made a lot of mistakes, or didn't try out certain things, or got frustrated bc I couldn't figure out how to do something, but overall I had a lot of fun. The actual art classes I took in middle and high school? Well, I took a life drawing class in high school that taught me how to draw from life, a skill I never would have acquired on my own bc the process for learning that skill requires a lot of patience, and personally, I find life drawing to be extremely boring. My high school art teacher was also allowing blatant copyright infringements to occur in her class, which was something I learned years later when taking a media law class in college to learn about copyright law specifically, so I guess I learned what to not do as a teacher if I manage to become one, but I didn't learn a whole lot of actual art skills or even really improve my art in any significant way. I never actually learned anything like the elements of art and how to use them, or color theory, or any of that, in class or even on my own, but because I was constantly looking at lots of art online, and making art on my own and experimenting with new things, I ended up learning all of the "essentials of art" intuitively, sort of like how children learn the grammar of whichever language(s) they grow up speaking without learning the actual formal grammar of the language. Which I think a lot of artists actually do as they continue to make art, even if they don't realize it.

Anyhow, moving on. I personally really enjoyed my undergrad illustration degree. Now, to be fair, if someone was willing to pay me to attend college for the rest of my life as my actual career, that is what I would do bc I love learning, and I love the challenge presented by college courses. But do I feel like I learned anything new about art in those classes? Yes and no. I took a lot of art history classes bc I had never had any art history before college, and found I loved the topic a lot. The life drawing classes I was required to take felt like a waste of time bc I already had that skill from the one high school class, and I spent most of those classes fighting the teachers about why we should have less nude models (bc nudes are super easy to draw from life, but clothing is very, very difficult, and I wanted to learn how to draw clothing as a challenge bc I was bored in those classes). I spent one class teaching the entire class how to use Photoshop bc the teacher's method was absolute BS and I could do everything faster and easier than what we were being taught bc I had been using the program for years (the teacher even joked about how I had hijacked the class, to which I'm still not sure was meant to be friendly or malicious). The "Anatomy for the Artist" class I took was one of the most useful classes I've ever taken, and really helped me with drawing not only humans, but anything with a skeleton and muscles, since the teacher's approach made it so I learned the skill of using actual real-life anatomy as a means of creating art from the knowledge of anatomy (and I lucked out for this class bc I had an adjunct who was there to cover the actual teacher who was on sabbatical, and from what I heard from classmates I would have learned nothing from the usual teacher's approach to the class; I hope the teacher I did have found a good stable job bc she was amazing). Most of the actual core illustration classes helped me improve my art a great deal, but not bc they taught me anything--more so, it was that I had to create a lot of art for them, and find creative solutions to the challenges the projects would present (there were lots of "illustrate this abstract concept without using x, y, or z imagery" or "create an illustration within these specific parameters" which really required me to think about how to plan and go about completing the final project). Somehow, the actual "foundations classes" that I took--where I was supposed to learn things like design theory, the elements and principles of art, color theory, etc.--well, let's just say the teacher was on his way to retirement, and didn't teach any of that really well, so I still ended up going through my undergrad more or less on intuition and the art skills I had cultivated on my own. Mostly, college art classes were useful in helping me to improve my art, not because I learned new things (although I did learn some new things), but rather because I needed to make lots and lots of art in a relatively short time, and making art constantly is the fastest way to improve.

That all said, I still never really got the point of things that I kept seeing or hearing as common art advice. For example: "Use references." Okay? What does that mean? What does that look like? How do I do that? I was never taught that once, and it was only partway through college that I figured out that people meant "look at a photo of a real person to figure out a pose or something" and not "learn about the subject you're trying to draw so you have an understanding of that subject that allows you to draw it from your imagination how you want". And honestly the former advice is useful but...only useful to a point, so I'm kinda glad I never learned it bc it would have stunted my development and presented a roadblock. In either case, I was never taught how to use a ref or what "use a ref" meant in my formal art education, and by the time I figured it out on my own, my repertoire of art skills made the advice moot.

So what's all the long and short of this? Is art education a sham and useless? Well, not entirely, but maybe sort of. It really comes down to which teachers are teaching the subject, and how they do it. I only had a handful of art teachers who were really able to get me to think about art differently and push me to learn more and improve. But I also had a friend in my undergrad class who had never drawn in his life and he found most of the classes super useful bc he wasn't coming in being self-taught and already drawing. We were at different places in our art journeys, and so we got different things out of the college classes.

I do feel overall that the focus of my college classes was more productive than the lack of focus from my high school classes. Would I tell everyone who wants to get better at art to go to art school? Hell no. I got a degree in art because I love it, and because I had hoped to work as a video game concept artist (for which one does need at least a BFA to get hired by most companies). Of course, by the end of my degree I had figured out the video game industry in America was absolutely not a place I wanted to be working for my own health, but my frustrations with how my art education had been structured, paired with the fact that I spent a few classes actually teaching my classmates things, made me think I might make an okay art teacher. But even my wanting to be an art teacher still comes from a place of deep love for art. For those who just want to take up art as a hobby, self-taught is fine, and sometimes it will be better than getting stuck with a bad teacher who'll crush the enjoyment of art. Yes, I think a well-structured art course could help someone learn art and become confident in their art, which is part of the reason I want to try teaching it (esp. bc it took me years to learn some things that a good teacher would have just like, covered in a core class), but like...self-taught or school-taught, there isn't a superior way to learn art. They're both just very different approaches.

#I think I got a bit off-topic from your question at the end there so uh...sorry if this doesn't really help answer your question #I maybe should have slept on this before answering but also I'm like #really really passionate about art and Will Not Shut Up About Literally Anything Art-Related #a few of my coworkers have been subjected to hour-long rants about art bc they asked me one (1) thing #anyhow I think art education CAN be good it's just...like any education it really relies on good teachers and a good curriculum #and yet being self-taught I know it's entirely possible to learn all the basics needed for making art on your own so #like #yeah #I dunno #anyhow #I love art a whole lot and I do not regret going to college and getting two different types of art degrees #no matter how useless certain members of my family think they are #(to be fair graduating in the middle of a pandemic was not in my future plans) #anyhow if you want to just mess around making art and having fun that is honestly one of the best ways to learn art #actually just messing around and having fun is the best way to learn most things #so...yeah! #unsuspecting-person #I still don't have an ask tag