Information about Platt College (San Diego, Mesa: credit, employment, transfer)

[avalon2k41]

Does anyone have any information about Platt College for Graphic Design in San Diego? I was supposed to go to SDSU this past Fall for Fine Arts but was not able to for financial reasons at the time, I reapplied but did not get accepted this time. So basically I need to know...

-Do you get a better education for your major at a school like this? (rather than taking needless courses)
-Is a Bachelors of Science better than a Bachelors in Fine Arts? Platt will give me a BA in science, a University will give a BA in Fine Arts? for what I want to major in.
-What is the employment success rate after graduated from either of these schools?

I don't live in California at the moment so i'm kinda dissapointed about SDSU because I though it would help me make friends socially since it is a bigger school, but Platt is a private school with under 500 students and more direct for employment, however I a not really sure, I need to know from others that have information on either school.

[scottfreez]

What do you want to do with your art? A BFA is almost certainly better if you want to go to an MFA program. If you want to be a fine artist you might stick with a BFA.

Platt would be ok if you want to jump into a working career as a designer with enough skill to use the tech. I went there years ago, didn't finish the program because I found employment as a graphic artist in a web shop and Platt wasn't anywhere near being up to speed with the web technology at the time. I got enough out of Platt to have mastered the Adobe software at the time but the teachers hadn't ever worked in a web environment. I imagine they've developed the program quite a bit over the years and there is obviously a lot more to it than the web anyway. But Platt's not cheap!

Have you considered community college? If money is finite for you, you could move to SD and enroll at Mesa College for a few years and knock out all the GE and some basics for pennies on the dollar. and then do a couple years in uni to finish a BFA or who knows maybe you can transfer some credit into Platt's BS program too. I took several art courses at Mesa, most of them were pretty good. For me the most important thing was simply spending a few thousand hours learning to draw and so on...

Good luck!

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by scottfreez

I got enough out of Platt to have mastered the Adobe software at the time but the teachers hadn't ever worked in a web environment.

Astutely observed, and the achilles heel of technical schools in general. Mastery of Adobe software, is not much more than a bullet point on the long list of things I expect a candidate to be able to do these days.