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A criticism of @TheNorthernArt from the perspective of an ex-illustration student & other students/graduates. A thread:
The purpose of this account/this thread is to highlight legitimate complaints to do with The Northern School of art (university). This is not an outright attack on any one specific individuals. Any people mentioned here will be unnamed in order to keep anonymity.
And again, this is from an ex-illustration students perspective. I am not or ever was a member of staff. I can only talk about what I& #39;ve experienced or seen.
Throughout the 3 years on the course, resources were exceptionally bad within the studios. chairs would often break under people, Macs were unmaintained and broken and would often lead to the loss or corruption of people& #39;s work.
Tutors seemed to have a lack of communication between each other or a lack of understanding the module briefs. you would ask one tutor a question to receive an answer completely different to the same question from a different tutor, leading students confused.
When confronted with this issue the response was often to shift blame back onto the students. This was a running theme throughout the 3 years. Student perception surveys were done as a reflection of what the course was doing right/wrong.
But every criticism made within these surveys was met with the condescending response of & #39;not our problem. you are adults. deal with it& #39;. No significant changes were ever listened to or acted upon. Shifting the blame onto the students turned into passive-aggressive attacks
The ex-course leader managed to demonise one particular student. A smaller portion of the class, myself included, witnessed this ex-course leader incite ostracism under the pretence that this person was supposedly misusing class funds. They weren& #39;t.
This was based on a lie that this ex-course leader started. All class funds were handled collectively as a class, with documentation and evidence. The lie spread by this person was purposeful misinformation with the intent to cause harm. It succeeded.
Mental health issues were not taken as seriously as they should have been. Many people have their own individual experiences with the lack of empathy from the uni. One of the biggest issues involved a case of domestic violence within student accommodation.
It took over 2 weeks to get to actually speak to student services about the issue, only for them to not take any action at or, or even get in contact with the victims. No follow ups were done. No welfare checks.
Staff were also treated incorrectly. Two of the buildings on campus contained kitchens with kitchen staff. One day, the uni decided to close one of the kitchens in one of the buildings. The staff had no clue that this was happening and were told mid-shift whilst preparing food
These kitchen staff lost their jobs and didn& #39;t come back. They were replaced with vending machines.
The course itself has a desperate lack of substance to it. & #39;Lessons& #39; consist of one or two words written on a PowerPoint slide. We were encouraged to be independent learners and learn all we can from the tutors though the response was often to figure it out ourselves
Telling students to & #39;figure it out& #39; makes the point of a university course redundant. It is a lot of money to pay for education to only be told to look it up online.
I was informed that the current final year students were told that their final exhibitions are to be done with a very restrictive & #39;digital degree show& #39; limited to one image per person.
The situation regarding Covid-19 has made everything difficult, but the lack of regard for the hardworking students is obvious. Paying 3 years for a university education only to receive a PowerPoint slide show at the end is insulting. not only to the students, but to the uni
My experience at this university over the course of 3 years slowly destroyed my self confidence and I was left with a lack of direction as a post graduate. At the beginning of 2020 I attempted suicide mostly due to this course and how it affected me during + after
I only ask that if someone reads through this they understand and listen to mine and other peoples concerns. The course has potential to benefit so many people, but at its current state it is severely lacking.
I do not want this to harm any individual people or start an online war, this is simply how I and others feel. I hope everyone is staying safe and staying home until the world is back on it& #39;s feet.
