Art class difficulty surprises students

By Megan Finnerty
Features Editor

A professor of art and design said many students enroll in his classes and other fine arts classes because they’ve been misled, expecting the classes to be easy "A"s or similar to high school art classes.

"A lot of people had these classes in high school and had really positive experiences there," said Dan Engelke, a professor of art and design. "But that might be the wrong kind of experience. These classes involve a lot of time and hard work. The biggest thing I hear from students is that they didn't realize the class would take so much time."

Engelke said he doesn’t think students are well-informed about the requirements of the course. He said this leads many to enroll in classes such as A&D 207, "Photography I," and A&D 242, "Ceramics I," expecting them to be less difficult than other courses, which leads to a 25 percent drop-out rate once classes start.

"We have about 1 in 4 drops; it's a real shock," Engelke said. "A lot of students come in and don't know how much is expected of them right off the bat. I wish I could get people who had been well-informed about what the class would require. But I don't know if it's happening with the counselors, that they tell their students the classes are easy or not as labor-intensive as some others."

David Sigman, the head of the department of visual and performing arts, said that many students with non-art and design majors want to pursue interests in the visual and performing arts, but that when they get to class, the learning curve in these classes is higher than they had anticipated.

"I don’t think the students are unprepared, but that is the nature of discovery in our courses," he said. "Many students rise to the occasion and others find that it was not what they anticipated and they choose not to take the course."

Dennis Bowling, head of advising in the School of Liberal Arts, said advisers in the school know art and design courses are difficult in their own right.

"In some cases, it (the problem) might be word or mouth, or failure to look into the classes or that the catalog is just a three-sentence description; you really need a syllabus."

Many non-art and design students can’t get into the classes until they are seniors because most classes barely have room for their average of 15 students and by the time students drop the course, it is sometimes too late to let in new students.

Lisa Peterson, a professor of art and design, said she has a class limit of 12 for some of her classes so with space reservations for art and design majors and almost 38,000 students at Purdue, the classes fill up quickly.

"All our classes are heavily enrolled," she said. "It's such a shame that we get so many students who are not A&D majors that come in as seniors and they're very successful; we'd love to see them again but then they graduate and we won't ever see them again."

Engelke said students who want to enroll in popular courses should read information about it and talk to people who have taken it.

"It's a three-credit course, like any other, and it has a grade, like any other, and this is a major Midwest research institution and we expect students to do work," Engelke said.

He said students who want to enroll in popular courses should stop by and show an interest in the course. See professors during office hours, he said, or come see the class and try to find out what it's like.

"Where there's a will there's a way," he said. "Work at it, like an adult. Not in an overbearing way, a systematic way. Know what you're getting into, know what professors expect of you and what will be required of you in this class. I think if people knew what they were getting into, we wouldn't have as much of a problem with these classes being so full."

Peterson said students are always welcome to come talk to professors.

"Some are flexible, some will say no, but it doesn't hurt to come talk to the professors," she said.

Art class difficulty surprises students

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