my mom constantly calls me selfish for wanting to go to pratt... i never talked to them about pratt until i passed the portfolio test but it's something i've been thinking about for two years now (granted two years isn't that long, but with the rate i change my mind it is a long time... i mean, i wanted to be an interior designer before i started high school) but it's a school i never thought i was the type to get in to.. and sure enough i was, and they let me apply and go through all of this excitement about getting in and passing portfolio only to tell me i can't even go.
my mother has been telling me it's so selfish for me to want to go to new york because it's "such a hardship" on the family to make the one trip to take my stuff up there, and if i can't get any storage unit to keep my stuff in during the summer then it'd be such a problem to pick it up.
i don't want to go to vcu... but center for the arts students from previous years come in every now and then and show us the work they've produced at their schools and many of them go to vcu, and they produce absolutely beautiful work...
but still. i want to go to a smaller school, where i have more attention from the professor, where i can get internships in a big city, where i can do something with my art. 4% of students from vcu go somewhere in art. i read that statistic somewhere this year.
that's not to say they don't become teachers or something.. but you get what i'm saying.
i don't want to become a big famous artist, that's not what i aim to do. i want to be known because i want to inspire people like i have been inspired by my favorite artists.. but i don't want to become an art robot that has to produce the same work to maintain whatever "name" i obtain if i were to become somebody.
what i want is to go to a school that will get me a big name with the right people so i can land a teaching job at an institute in the north. that's all i want.
i wouldn't mind going to the corcoran. i love the campus, the park across the street, the hirshhorn, the national gallery, the classrooms.. it's a great place.

i'm not sure of what to do. my parents promised me 13 thousand.. and with the 9 thousand from pratt i'd already have 22,000 out of the way. that doesn't leave that much. and that doesn't even count government money in terms of the fafsa and the vmfa grant i just applied for.

i'm really upset about this. i wish college wasn't so expensive. my friend has an uncle who is a professor at pratt, and he told her if she was going to go to vcu for art she may as well not go to college at all.
i'm not sure if it's that bad. the work i've seen produced from fellow cfa students was amazing, but as for the other students it was cheesy unimaginative bullshit.

oh well.
we'll see what happens. i'll regret not going to pratt for the rest of my life, but it's not my decision as my parents made it crystal clear within the past few days.

Control issue or not, I remember some of the "decisions" I made from 17-20 and I was glad that I had some safety net below my dumbass trapeze act.

I also know that it took me far too many years to admit it, but there are things parents know about their offspring that the child isn't totally aware of. Of course, in real life situations with every sort of dysfunction imaginable this isn't always applicable, but I would still recommend taking some time to exchange ideas with them.



But the key word is "different". You're plenty smart enough to realize that you are the exception to the rule. Lord knows I can go to Wilkens Avenue in Baltimore and find a dozen young women who left home in their middle teens to become the other kind of self-employed, hopping into the cars of strangers to get quick cash for the next fix.

There's a time and a place to fight—and man, do I love to fight—but this could be a wise lesson in choosing battles and gaining leverage in situations for the young lady here.

oh yeah

np: bjork- "it's not up to you"

the irony.

they tried to tell me i'm not mature enough to go to new york because i give homeless men food every now and then, i talk to my customers at work (what the fuck kind of argument is this) and i cried when my mother told me i had to go to vcu or community college if i didn't get in regular acceptance (before they called to notify us of their mistake).

it's so dumb. of course i cried. i was really hoping for this to work out.

I know it seems like that now, but it may not be true. I'm not quite 30 yet and college seems like another lifetime ago. High school even moreso. Lots of things change, especially your perception. Well, for some people they don't, but once we take over we can just burn them at the stake.

if things don't work out for my future if i happen to go to vcu then i will regret not going to pratt...
if things work out and i come across a teaching job at an art school once i'm done with vcu and grad school, wherever it is, then great.
but if nothing happens and i have to work in a cubicle doing desk work for something i've never had any interest in.. then i'll always regret not going to pratt because what would have happened then? perhaps the same thing, but i will never know.
i can say i'll never regret not going to vcu. if i went to pratt and things didn't work out like i wanted them to, then atleast i went to my top school..

that's how i see it now, atleast. actually maybe i'd regret spending all of that money.

hear me now and believe me later: this is all bullshit. they are, in fact, the selfish one. it's different. they're afraid. afraid of what i don't know but they are going to have to let you go at some point. they are just trying to keep you down on the farm.

where the fuck is virginia?
I'LL take you to new york.
try to find a way not to regret this opportunity.




why is this not your decision?
well, as uyou can see this has reaally hit home for me.
i would have died if i had to stay at home.

but cp, it's your life, not mine.
this is a big decision but you know, you're not a kid any more.
i hope you can work it all out.

what's up with your dad? i thought he was cool. isn't he on your side?

I'm not trying to beat you up here, and I'm not taking sides. Keep that in mind.



It hasn't failed yet. You won't know if it all works out or not for many many years, and by then it won't even matter. I know it sounds HUGE right now, and it is important. But it's not the end of the world. Really. It's all the goop between your ears that is going to make you or break you.

I dropped out of college. Just decided I was done with it. Maybe that was stupid. Oh well, people that know me often don't realize it. And I'm my own boss these days.

Words of wisdom oft repeated by my father:
"You are limited only by your own initiative and your own imagination."
That shit gets me out of tons of jams.

Jesus. This thread is moving too fast for me. Probably shoulda stayed in college, huh.

Not to belittle CP at all, but I'm just amazed she knows so much about what she wants to do with her life. When I was her age, I was an idiot and had no clue about what to do with my life. Guess what? I'm 35, and I still don't know.

None of us can tell you what to do. I see ayah's point, and I see Fu's point. I don't know your parents, so it's hard for me to make a judgment call on them at this point. I have a hard time believing that they would intentionally (and maliciously) keep you from following your dreams, but I also know that sometimes parents are afraid of letting go. Are you an only child, by any chance?

She speaketh the truth.

c'mon. she's got a great opportunity here. now. what's wrong with trying to take advantage of it? you're right, if it doesn't work out something else may come a long. but you've got to be careful of the dream deferred way of living.

and i still think that her parents are afraid of her going because it's all so "different."
ya know new...york...city and all.

my dad is cool, he is sympathetic and never calls me selfish, but my mother holds the reigns.
my dad did say last night "blame it on me, i hate new york"... and my mom always did tell me that it was up to him. i don't know who it is. but he doesn't talk as much as she does.. so i find it more difficult to get upset with him.

i want to go to new york so bad, but i don't want my family to hate me.
i want to make my dad proud too, so i don't want to go against their will. he has had one child fuck up his life completely, so i want to be the one who goes on and does something great so he'll be proud of me.
i don't know.
i want to go to new york and make him proud though.

atleast send me to dc.
i don't know where blue milk is going, as dumb as it sounds to you all i'm sure.. i'm concerned about that.
it's tough to toss out your best friend of three years and boyfriend of two.

oh well. anyways. i'm really frustrated with everything right now. i think it's selfish of my parents as well, ayah.. but as much as i say that they call me selfish more and more.

i called the coast guard to talk about the reserve program so i could get college money but my mom told me not to talk to them again. i've applied for grants, and i'm applying to scholarships. we filled out the fafsa.
somehow i don't think it's going to work out, though.
jkfgdngf

child of 4. one is a marine, one dropped out of college, one dropped out of high school and has been in jail and is addicted to drugs and is a drug dealer... and is crazy. but i love him, one is 11, and that leaves me.

i think that may be why.. we're the last two. but if they want me to do something with my life why won't they let me go and do it?

btw, for what it's worth? My husband's father was an only child who grew up in (gasp) Meridien, MS. His parents would only pay for his college if he went to Miss State. He wanted to go to Georgia Tech. He found a way to go to Georgia Tech, and paid for his own way. After that, he swore he would never tell his kids where they could and couldn't go to school.

If it means that much to you, you WILL find a way.

in the end i think i'm looking at paying about 70-80 myself, if i went the pratt route.

you have 10 years right? i want to go to grad school too.. that's what worries me.

edit: i HAVE to go to grad school in order to go in to my profession. but if i play my cards right i can be paid to get my masters, or so i've been told.... if i'm going the route of becoming a professor, i can get teaching jobs within the school or something to get experience and i will be paid for it.
that sounds nice.

your dad's passivity is just as aggravating as your mom's outright bossiness.
unlike eFu and dana (two very well respected people in my book) i am taking sides...yours.
but i'm overbearing and opinionated (and italian.)

you'll figure it out.
after all this, you are one talented young woman with an unbridled enthusiam for your work. hold onto your art. sometimes it helps to work through crappy times like this.

I know that every day, I have 2 thoughts: If I had had ANY body trying to inspire me or steer me to doing something more than being average, I would have gone to Harvard or Princeton or Duke or UNC or something like that.
Or I would have been a page at the GA State Assembly in HS, or I would have volunteered on campaigns or written more or whatever.

I also think "I like my life, I love the weird crazy experiences I have, and now that I am madly in love and getting married, I think that any deviation from this course would not have led me to the person that has enriched my life so much."

BUT, I am being inspired to do the stuff I should have done ten years ago. Or would have done had I known.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. YOU have have an opportunity not afforded many people, and to pack that up and go to VCU?? DON'T SETTLE FOR THAT ELIZABETH.

I said it before: fortune favors the bold. Get the loans, take the scholarship, and tell your parents you'll see 'em when you see 'em, but there's a bigger world out there for you to see.

You can slump toward the middle and be crushed by massive debt and saddled with debt you can't pay anyway in your middle age.

yeah, and they want you to stay there because...why?
sorry.
i'm done.
i don't want to miss survivor.

they want me to stay because we have a pool and a treadmill and a 3000 dollar tv and a corvette and brand new truck and a 6 bedroom house. what else could i ask for

a fucking shitty dorm room in brooklyn for four years.
THATS what i'm asking for.
that's what i want.
and it's not like we seriously cannot afford it.

this is what i was going to tell you to brighten up your day.
and if you work your ass off and become one hell of an artist you can go to Pratt for grad school and that would probably be better then going there for undergrad.

yeah i was thinking that. my art teacher was telling me that's when you really get most of your galleries and showings anyways...

i don't know. big decisions to make.
i want new york, though.

art school as i saw it (and i mean that literally, i was a design major who watched the art majors and took a few of their classes) was three years of learning and then one year of exploration. Then grad school is ALL exploration.

You should definetly try to go to Pratt. I was in a simillar sitiguation last year, except instead of Pratt I wanted to go to Berklee college of music. I was accepted into Berklee but, becuase of the cost, my parents made me go to my second choice school, Appalachian state university. I had been working and planning to go to Berklee since freshman year in highschool. I definetly regret not going to my top school. Now I'm not sure about what I'm going to major in becuase App only offers classical music. Plus I'm now in Boone, NC instead of Boston. Maybe you could go to VCU for a year or two then transfer to Pratt.

Ok, so I don't know you at all and am new to the board, AND go to uni in a country where it is for the most part partly govt funded and the interest free loans deferred...

BUT

Having read this thread, you clearly don't want to go to vcu. So don't settle for it. You won't be happy there and won't make the best of it, and will waste 4 yrs. Well, not waste I'm sure, but there's a lot to be said for being content in your choice.

The important thing is that it's your life, not your parents'. If you follow what they say and don't end up with what you want you will hold it against them and poison the relationship long-term. Without trying to sound callous, don't let the other stuff that's happened in your family tie you to any particular option. At any rate, I question their motives in letting you apply to Pratt and Corcoran if they had no intention of letting you go if you got in

I really hope this works out for you, and you get enough from the grants etc you're waiting on to make the financial question less of a problem in the decision. But seriously, DON'T GIVE UP. There's still a couple of months before this all needs to be sorted right? Keep pushing for everthing ou can in the meantime