Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design

This is an incredibly strong school of Industrial, Communication, and Interior & Architectural Design. You will leave these programs of study ready to get an awesome job and represent yourself well. Do not go here for anything with "studio practice" in the title. The arts program was recently assimilated into an all-in-one interdisciplinary curriculum and it is awful, specialties and focuses have been removed, and some of the staff are absolutely unprofessional jokes. Go to MIAD for design, for art, go anywhere else.

As an adult who went their straight out of high school and one that returned trying to get a degree with a child and one on the way in 2015/2016 school year i can say this. FOR CHILDREN (by which i mean young adults right out of or still in high school) it is perfect for catering only to that age group, ONLY as long your full time and have a vast amount of resources by which to complete projects with all or nearly all of the teachers advertising for Utrecht/Blick the highly expensive art supply store across the street. With the announcement of full time tuition reaching upwards of U.S. $34,000 a school year, I personally could not consider it fiscally responsible to attend said school any longer (especially with places like Alverno/UWMilwaukee/WCTC/Carroll nearby at a portion of the cost). FOR PARENTS OF STUDENTS: The so called mentor system is an extremely laughable joke. For all students enrolled in Understanding the Visual classes they make you attend after class mandatory meetings that are about an hour in length late in the evening, waiting the students valuable project/work time. Some of these classes are about "risk reduction". I am a former student that was older than my mentors. The mentors were perfectly OK with one student attempting to argue that she believed alcohol had no affect on ones actions. Most of the students attending this school have had no influence of being drunk, including the one mentioned above, and therefore do not completely understand what it means. As a parent myself I was appalled at the waste of money put into the mandatory Risk Reduction meetings. Along with the fact that they really do not prepare a young person for the dangers of being out in the world on their own, the examples they chose to give those students and the what should you do responses that accompanied them where completely terrible. To sum it up: This school is only for 18 year olds fresh out of high school that have parents you can pay for every thing and dont have to go out and get a job that takes away from project time. IT IS NOT for working adults with families and rent and bills to pay. With that being said the vast majority of staff here are artists themselves and understand the undying love of creating art. They are pretty good at helping you achieve you're project goals. The deadlines are tight and the workload is heavy. If your going to go I recommend not trying to overload your classes, 18 credits is A LOT for one semester. Just stick to 12. You can always take courses in the summer. This is a good place for beginners that have the money, but not so great for artists already making a go of it or, those that need more financially. You get out of this place what you put in. Buyer Beware