UNSW Art & Design — Attraction in Sydney

I studied 3 years for Bachelor of Fine Arts in the painting and drawing devision.

I am absolutely appauled by the standard of teachers at this school, majority of which have no right to even classify themselves as teachers. You are paying them for a serivce they do not provide, instead they use your time to voice their own bias opinion on what they think you should do and discouraging you from your own likes/style of art.

I have been criticised for 'staying in my comfort zone' when I attempted oil portraits (second time I have ever attempted oils, first time for portraits) yet other students do almost exactly the same thing each semester/project but the teachers like it so they dont say a word to them about 'comfort zones'

There is no such thing as simply 'doing or painting what you like and want' even if one of the teachers like your work , all the other teachers have different opinions which they will verbalize constantly and even harass you because thats simply not good enough.

For those of you who dont know, grading goes like this: you complete one work or series each semester. You have to create a 'research file' that reveals your idea development, and comparison to artists/history/contemporary/galleries etc woth 50% and experiments of how you might portray this idea with material/composition/size/subject matter etc worth the other 50%, and then your final artwork is the result of all that technically not worth anything.

So basically as long as you have enough experiments 50% and research 50% to support your idea and its good than you can literally have any idea for an artwork, it doesnt matter what the final artwork looks like.

So when one of my teachers constantly criticised the look of my art and experiments and 'encouraged' me to do something else 2 week before end of semester and never gave me any feedback on my research/experiments; I was more than angry to find out I had failed because I did not have enough research/experiments to support my idea. Expecially when you recieve an un-formal grade in the middle of semester to let you know how your going and noone thought it could be useful to inform me I had recieved a fail grade - teachers are meant to give you your grade. And here I am, trying to do/ change everything because my teacher doesnt like it and becauses I want to pass, to find out she clearly had no interest in me passing, because she never told me I needed more research/experiments; just that she didnt like the look of my artwork.

I am not the only student who felt this way/feels this way. Basically even if one teacher likes your work they all have different opinions and you cant satisfy everyone. And if the teachers dont like your work than prepare yourself for constant criticism and having to defend what you like and constantly being on the verge of failing even if you do/produce more work than most other students, which makes for a very stressful and emotionally distressing course.

You are paying them to be teachers, to help, support, encourage and educate you. However they arent teachers they are 'Contemporary Artists' which means they are more interested in expressing their own personal opinions and bias judgments, stroking their own egos and feeling supperior.

I cannot discourage you enough to not go to COFA enough, they do not care about you, and even if they did they literally did not teach me anything, they only do basic introductions to painting/drawing and from then on its your own independent work, like Highschool HSC Art, you are just paying them to ocassionaly pop their head in to criticize you which is not worth $5,000 a year.

Absolutely despise COFA and my experinece there, it has discouraged me from ever...

Studied fine arts here and dropped it. I didn't really fit in with the fine arts people as much as I liked because funnily because at the time Paddington seemed very left in politics and although I cared a lot about nature and animals, and was more politically central... overall I was a little more analytical and had my own beliefs. Felt like the majority of the students weren't on my level conceptually hahah (finally got that out) and wasted a bit of my time... but I did do a lot of cool experiments!

Even our fashion senses were different I was more neutral and smart casual while they were a lot more colourful (maybe this has changed) but even though it said Paddington was my main campus on my uni card, I never really identified with this campus.

My tutors and lectures were all fantastic and kind and some would help you even when you're no longer their student 🤗

Some courses are very future tech oriented e.g. creative robotics, some data visualization, interactive media. And the makerspace is...

----- two years later ------ I think their teaching quality is so so. I guess it's because the easy money from the unstoppable international students like me. Some important course was basically delivered by under-paid doctor candidates, while the famous professors just come to the course twice a semester as a branding asset.

I'm sure this tricks the international students well. My wife was one of them. But it's brand-damaging in long run, and in COVID, when there are not much easy money.

My wife’s learning experience there was terrible. Partly because of expectation mismatch — she aims at jobs next step while it’s quite “art and exploration”, leaving students much space and little guidance. She was lost.

Good luck! —————original review —————

Quiet, small, and good diversity. There is courtesy bus between here...