Post-Bacc?
I first heard about a post-bacc program from a pre-med friend, as post-bacc is a much more common program in the medical school track it seems. The program is designed for people who didn’t realize how much they want to be a doctor during their years as undergrads. This one-year program helps build the necessary knowledge foundation for people who plan to enter a med school. The post-bacc program in Studio Art is based on the same concept: it’s designed for people who didn’t have a BFA, people with BFA but are not sure what a MFA program is really about, or artists who don’t really need a MFA degree, but still one to get a taste of a graduate level training.
The price of the post-bacc programs are not cheap at all, and more and more art schools are running this so-called “post-bacc programs.” I have been warned by people that definitely DON’t go to a post-bacc program, becuase those programs are all just “money making programs” for the art schools. New York Times had an article on all these post-bacc programs in Art, too, so go read it yourself. I too was very suspicious of it, and that’s why it took me three years from thinking of applying to actually attending one. After endless researching, as a no-art-training-at-all-background adult, I applied to four different programs back in 2014: SAIC’s Post-Bacc in Painting & Drawing, MICA’s Post-Bacc in Art, SVA’s BFA second degree, ArtCenter’s BFA second degree.
A Little About Me
My story is a little cliche, the typical kind that “I knew I want to be an artist since I was a child, but I wasn’t encouraged or supported blahblahblah.” My mom gave me a chance to prove myself when I was in 6th grade. “If you want to be serious about art in the future, go take the entrance exam for the top middle school of artistically talented students.” Long story short, I tried, and I failed. Actually, it was more than just failing. The art teacher from the top art-specific middle school who was monitoring the exam tore my still-life drawing apart right in front of me when I turned it in. “I asked you to draw a whiskey glass bottle, not a beer can, you arrogant idiot.” I walked out from the exam with tears in my eyes, but I didn’t let the tears came out of my eyes. I got home that night, took off all my drawings, spent an hour to tear every single of them, like what the teacher did, and then took all to the kitchen and burn them into ashes. I made a promise to myself that night, never ever do any drawings, not even doodling in my textbooks, I am not good enough for art, I don’t deserve it. And I kept the promise for 10 years. I might have broken the promise a couple of times in high school, but nothing serious.
It was not until the last two years in college then I decided to start drawing and painting again. And once I started, I could feel that the desire to pursue an artistic career is not something I could stop any more (ew, cliche cliche, gross, i know, but that’s how I felt). At first, I was trying out some more “realistic” art path, as I had no knowledge on what fine arts really mean in today’s art world. I tried the graphic designer path, as well as the illustrator path, both through specific training programs. But I quickly realized that neither do I have strong interest nor talent in either field. Therefore, after finishing taking a semester of illustration classes in ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, I moved to Chicago and started the post-bacc program in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).
I must confess I had a very lame and stupid fantasy about SAIC back then, simply because it is THE art school where Walt Disney went. I didn’t care about other notable people who also were related to SAIC, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jeff Koons and many many more. I was extremely naive and ignorant about the whole fine art “thing” before I started the post-bacc program. Pretty sure I only knew who Pablo Picasso is.
Outcome of the Program
Perhaps I am the type of student who benefits the most from a post-bacc program (clueless but passionate). 7 months into the program, I feel like I am literary living and starting a second life. My horizon is so much widened now (in terms of fine art knowledge). I came into the program thinking I would continue to make the kind of paintings that I did in 2014, just with better skill. But I ended up doing completely different work that I never thought would come out from me. Well, not all changes are awesome of course. I actually feel very lost about my future as I am finishing the program now, but in a good and painful way. The more one learns, the less one knows. This is exactly how I feel know.
Through the program, I was mentored by many renown working artists, I took undergraduate classes that gave me a sense of what it’s like to be an undergrad student in an art school, I attended many artist lectures and professional workshops, I also took graduate MFA-level art history classes and seminars to have a full understanding of what it will be like if I decide to have a MFA degree in future. Everything that did not make sense to me now all makes sense, but everything that made sense to me now all doesn’t make any sense. But I feel like it is what a good education does to you. Maybe? Maybe to the school(s), post-bacc program is really just money making (but what is not anyway?) But from the director who runs the post-bacc program at SAIC, I know she is full of passion and truly believes in the students.
When people ask me about the post-bacc program, they always ask about the outcome. And I know they don’t really care about the vague but sincere answer of “how much I grow as a person and an artist wannabe,” they want to know if doing a post-bacc program means you are guaranteed acceptance to the MFA program. I know some art schools or even different majors at SAIC do that, but this is not the case for the Painting & Drawing program in SAIC. But is it really important? To me, a year after the program, I have gained so much more than I have expected, I honestly feel like it is a better program than just doing a MFA (we also shared pretty much all the same resources with the MFA students).
What’s Next?
To reward you for reading all the way till here, I decide to give you the fruit that might satisfy your curiosity. I did apply to MFA programs this year. To people who know how hard it is to get into a MFA program, you might be impressed by the outcome. To people who have no clue on how hard it is to get into a MFA program, ask your artist friend, or look up the data online yourself (UCLA’s Graduate website has the acceptance rate on their website, feel free to check the acceptance rate for MFA vs. other science programs, you might be surprised by how a “useless MFA” can be so much harder to get into than other STEM graduate degrees). I applied to 5 and got into 3: SAIC (Painting& Drawing MFA), MICA (Mount Royal MFA), CalArts (Art MFA). Out of the three, MICA gave me really kind scholarships (Q_Q meant a lot to me, thanks) and some little amount from CalArts. However, I have decided not to continue an MFA program, at least not for now. I need at least a gap year to think it through.
And btw, I am probably the least accomplished post-bacc student in our program in terms of MFA admission results, since I am really the most art-outsider person before entering the program (I worked in a startup tech company). I feel like the post-bacc program has the coolest people in the whole school. Literary. We have doctor, professor, ivy league grads, working artists, and so many more. These are just the people I personally know of, There are a lot of badass people who have attended the SAIC post-bacc program in the past 30 years.