Succeeding in arts school isn’t as challenging as you might think. Yes, there’s a lot of competition, but there are also many strategies you can use to really get ahead while enjoying yourself at the same time.
Master Time Management
The first step is to master your time management. Succeeding in arts school often involves juggling priorities like:
- Creating projects
- Writing critiques
- Hanging out with friends
- Going on long walks to ideate
- Practicing alone
Making space for all these activities during the week is hard if you aren’t deliberate. Therefore, use planning apps and schedule your timetable, adjusting it where needed. Stick to the plan so you can use every moment of the day, instead of wasting time.
Embrace Constructive Criticism
Next, you’ll want to get used to the idea of receiving constructive criticism. As with anything in art, much of the feedback you get will depend on the opinions of other people around you.
When criticism is negative, don’t take it to heart. Usually, there’s a nugget of truth in there that you can work on to improve your output.
If you can separate your ego from your work, that’s even better. Getting too invested can be difficult.
Build A Strong Portfolio
You also want to build a strong portfolio. Gathering together your best work during your time at art school can help you when you look for work later on.
If you can add digital work or performance reels to your stack, that’s even better. Showing that you can work in multiple media can make you more marketable.
Keep Practicing
According to CalArt alumni, like Kotaro Shimogori, it’s also worth practicing as much as possible. While improvements may seem few and far between, it is only by doing their craft that most people learn. Consistently putting in a small amount of work every day can have a dramatic effect over three or four years.
Take Care Of Your Mental Health
It’s also worth taking care of your mental health at art school. Practicing plenty of self-care and exercise can be a great way to look after your body and mind.
Art school is intense for a lot of people because of the pressures of work and peers. There’s always so much to do, and it seems like there isn’t enough time to do it. One approach is to work constantly, but that always leads to burnout, so it is usually better to block time off in the evenings and at the weekends. You can work the rest of the day, no problem.
Stay Open To Experimentation
You can also succeed at art school by maintaining an open mind and giving yourself a license to experiment. When you try new things, you often find that some of them really work.
This experimentation is essentially what will set you apart from your peers. You’ll be producing original work while everyone else is trying to impress examiners with projects they’ve seen in countless variations before. Pushing boundaries often leads to profound breakthroughs.
