<p>My daughter is interested in SCAD. I have many reservations based on old information I'm reading .. I'd like to know what's going on there now.</p>
<p>My daughter was there for a summer seminar this summer. She loved it. They walked around the nearby area, and she thought it was fine. The key is that being there excited her. The dorm she stayed in for the week was a converted motel with the rooms opening on to an outside deck that she wasn’t that fond of, but overall a very positive experience.</p>
<p>My daughter is now a senior there…and is thriving. She calls Savannah “home” now and will be quite sad when the time comes to pack up and move elsewhere.</p>
<p>During her first three years she lived ‘on campus’ in three different dorms: Turner House (frosh only), Oglethorpe House (right next to convention center) and Forsythe House (large converted ‘home’ for just 40 students total…apartment-style living). This year she and two of her friends, also seniors, are in an off-campus apartment.</p>
<p>Her time at SCAD has been full of great learning experiences. She had various opportunities open up to her through her classes that gave her real-world experience working with a client and preparing materials for formal presentation. Through what she’s learned, she has a website portfolio set up with a resume and will be ready to hit the market in search of the perfect job.</p>
<p>She has enjoyed living in Savannah and has had no trouble at all navigating the city and staying safe. She learned early on how to be ‘street-smart’ and never place herself or her friends in a bad situation. In addition, the friends she’s made there all look out for each other.</p>
<p>She learned by her junior year that a bicycle is really the best way to get around rather than relying on the bus system which can take extra time once you are away from the freshman dorm where every color route stops…not so at the other dorms, and changing buses may be necessary). This year she has a car but the reality is that it stays parked most of the week since finding adequate parking away from her apartment is just too time consuming. She has the car more for grocery shopping, other errands and to transport any large projects that are unwieldy on a bicycle.</p>
<p>She loves being just a short walk away from the riverfront as well as City Market which often has lots going on over the weekends. She can’t wait for the film festival this year as instead of being a volunteer to help (she did that the past two years) she splurged and bought some tickets to actually enjoy the films. </p>
<p>We see the area twice a year, at move-in and move-out. We see the areas that she needs to avoid…are they bad looking? Yes. But I can say that each and every time we have visited we have never felt unsafe or unsure about walking around the city at any time of the day in the ‘usual’ tourist or student areas. </p>
<p>SCAD was a great choice by my daughter.</p>
<p>I was also at Summer Seminar this summer and it was super fun. I never felt unsafe, there are always lots of people around. I didn’t really like the bus system either. Sometimes we would have to wait hour to half an hour in the middle of a Georgia summer to get on a bus because the previous one was full. I also stayed in Oglethorpe house. For the price of housing at SCAD, I would have thought they would have had nicer housing. It is an old hotel and the bathrooms were pretty outdated and kind of dirty. I did not enjoy taking showers. The one thing that made up for the housing was the food. THE FOOD WAS SO GOOD!!! It was organic and freshly made. They even had the southern food I grew up eating. Yummmy. Best desserts and freshly made muffins for breakfast. The rest of SCAD is super hi-tech. They have rooms full of cintiqs (Aka, hundreds of thousands of dollars) and an amazing library and theater on Broughton street. Broughton street is really great.</p>
<p>I’m still trying to convince my parents I want to go there. Sighhhh.</p>
<p>With an average loan debt of between $135,000.00 and $153,000.00, SCAD graduates have risen to the challenge of making their estimated $1,325.000 a month payments. With the mid-Georgian modesty of which she is renowned, Dear Leader (Paula Wallace) explains to H post how SCAD prepares students to replay their loans.</p>
<p>(1) By courting partnerships with companies like Chick-Fil-A, and the Candlewood Suites in Mobile Alabama, SCAD offers students the opportunity to build their portfolio and their resume. This experience provides SCAD students a competitive advantage over competing art school graduates who spend their time in university focused primarily on developing their craft. </p>
<p>(2) SCAD’s annual Film Festival features as many celebrities as the SCAD entertainment budget can afford. The presence of these celebrities provide the SCAD film students photo-ops, as well as the opportunity to say in job interviews that the student has met celebrity “xyz” (SCAD understands the importance of name dropping).</p>
<p>(3) SCAD Fashion department has handed out more ‘lifetime achievement’ awards to aging fashion designers than any other art school in the United States. These events offer students the opportunity to be photographed with the fashion industries greatest practitioners. </p>
<p>(4) Finally, SCAD’s Hong Kong campus, located in the poorest district of Hong Kong, provides SCAD students the opportunity to experience first hand, what real poverty looks like. This life altering experience helps the SCAD student to appreciate what little money will be left over after paying their student loan each month.</p>
<p>Wow! SCADSECRETS, you are the epitome of a ■■■■■. Your type of sarcastic, totally biased opinion is both unhelpful, and easily ignored.</p>
<p>While I have no idea or opinion on whether SCADSECRETS is a ■■■■■, I do think a good point was made regarding taking out loans. My view is that no student in the arts should be taking out loans for an undergraduate degree. Does anyone know if the average loan debt really is in the ballpark of $135,000.00 to $153,000.00?</p>