I have very few posts, and the majority of them are about FAMU. Why break that trend? I feel as though this post will be on the cynical side. So If you’re in a good mood, you might reconsider reading just now.

I have been at FAMU for 2 full years, and I cannot wait to be gone. I’m in my last few weeks and it’s like pulling teeth every time I go to class. As soon as I step foot on campus I feel my temper dwindle to a firecracker fuse. No one does anything right and everyone is in my way. I have a good control on my temper, so all this aggression is kept inside. I generally wait till I get home and tell my wife about all the utterly stupid things that happened. Twitter usually feels my rage as well, but I tend to censor my tweets pretty well.

FAMU is by far the most unprofessional school I have ever attended or visited. Granted I haven’t been to a lot of colleges, but I feel I have a good grasp on what a genuine college experience should be like. I shouldn’t have to track down my professors and remind them we have class. I shouldn’t have to explain my financial aid over and over again to 4 different people. I shouldn’t have to print and re-print assignments because a professor lost the original. I don’t feel like these are normal occurrences at other universities.

I’m going to give you a few examples of what I deal with school. First a little background. I came to FAMU with an A.A. degree. This meant that all I’d need to take were classes for my major. I’d have a series of photo classes and a series of classes for my minor which is Print Production. I thought this would be a breeze, and I’d be a better photographer when I finished.

As it turns out I feel like I didn’t learn all that much, and came out a more callus and aggravated person. I came to this school primarily for one photo professor. I get here to find that he is just as frustrated with the school as I will soon be. He comes to class, and leaves as soon as possible. I can’t blame him though; I try and limit my time on campus as much as possible. That being said, here’s some examples of “Class” at FAMU.

There are a series of 4 classes that all Graphic Arts students have to take. We call them colloquium 1-3 and the 4^th is called Graphic Arts Seminar. If it were up to me I would call them “How to act like an adult 1-4” but I was not consulted on the naming of the courses. What we learn in these classes is essentially how to act like an adult in the workplace, as well as in real life. We use one book for the first 3 classes and the last one is a kind of free for all.

We learn how to dress for a job interview, not to spread gossip, what emotions are, how to treat your co-workers. Basically things you should have learned at home growing up. Some topics were as basic as oral hygiene, and setting your alarm to wake up on time. How on earth you made it to college and never brushed your teeth I will never understand.

The simpleton nature of the first 3 courses was compounded by the teacher. She is an adjunct whose profession is in advertising. Class always starts no sooner than 15min. after the scheduled time, and it’s always a soft start. She’ll call roll and chit-chat with people along the way; stand at the podium and shuffle papers for a few minutes and then ask what chapter we’re on. In all 3 classes we are assigned a chapter to present and then act out in a skit. I’m 25 years old and acting out skits on when you should use the company card. I really don’t understand it.

In the 3^rd class we are asked to give a small presentation of the work we’ve produced at FAMU. It’s nothing big, a 5-10 minute slideshow of your work. Im not sure if it’s common for this to happen; but the teacher will answer her phone in the middle to someone’s presentation and hold a conversation. Luckily she didn’t do it during my presentation because I would have stopped and said something about how completely rude it is to interrupt your student with a cell phone call. The people she did this to just continued on with their presentation like nothing happened.

The first 3 in this series of useless classes pale in comparison to the senior level 4^th edition; Graphic Arts Seminar. This class is taught by the dean of the graphic arts program. In this class we honestly don’t do much of anything. If you were to ask me what we talk about any given class period, I couldn’t begin to tell you. It essentially boils down to a father/son type talk about life through the eyes of a 60 year old man. Sure we have assignments, but they were crafted 15 years ago and copied and pasted into a new semester. If the first 3 classes started 15mintues late, that would be a miracle for this class. 30 minutes was the norm and sometimes we would be there longer. As I mentioned before, this is the class that the professor needed to be reminded of. We’d hunt for the professor and find him in his office eating, totally oblivious to class having started 20 minutes prior.

We were given group projects with vague titles. My group was Technology. No other direction, we just had to give a presentation on Technology. We meet the day before our presentation and planned out what we’re going to do. Our presentation lasted all of 10 minutes and consisted of the other members of the group reading directly from PowerPoint slides. I’m not saying I’m a great speaker, but I feel like I can hold my own. My classmates are in college and don’t deserve to be read to.

In Seminar we have a thing called a Capstone. It’s basically a presentation of the work you’ve done at FAMU. You show your portfolio, talk about what you learned, and tell what your career plans are. I signed up late for mine so I ended up with one of the first slots. We have a sponsor, which is one of our professors, who looks over our portfolio and helps craft our presentation. After being told by my preferred professor, “I don’t want to do it” I went with my 2^nd choice.

Watching my other classmate’s presentations I felt much better about my own work. The majority of presenters were Graphic Designers. I use the term “designers” lightly; I can design better than most of the design majors. Flyers for parties were present in almost all of the graduates, as well as drawings from freshmen year art classes. I felt like they had a copy of Photoshop, and read tutorials to produce their assignments.

It comes to the day of my presentation and Magan goes with me. I’m supposed to go at 1:30, but at 1:45 it was just Magan, one other student, and me in class. The professor arrives in usual style about 2, and asks if I’m doing my presentation today. I sarcastically say I’m presenting at 1:30. He then he jokingly says, “I guess we’re running late.” It was at this point I wanted to cuss and walk out.

I started my presentation around 2:10 with 5 people watching. I ended 15min. later with about 25 people watching. It was a constant stream of people through the door. However, the coup de gras was when the professor walked up to me while I was speaking and asked who my sponsor was and where he was. I looked at him and said “Seriously? I’m in the middle of my capstone?” Apparently I am responsible for making sure my sponsor was present. I was responsible for making sure a grown man was present for my capstone.

The use of the English Language at FAMU is quite loose. To be a professor only requires you to show up a few times a week. Sentences require a noun and any form of a verb. I be…I is…What be…these are common occurrences in a formal class setting. Did I mention the time one professor made fun of a student’s speech impediment? The student stutters her R’s sometimes; and the professor responded once with, “Wha, Wha, Wha, What did you say?”

All in all I feel like I am a more callus, frustrated person for having attended FAMU. I’m not convinced that my photography skills improved over the past 2 years. The stress of dealing with the administration, and completely bogus class work hindered me from producing quality work. That’s not to say I didn’t produce good work, I just feel like I could have done a lot better had it not been for a school that is run like a nightclub.

Looking back I wish I had gone to another college. I say this only about the college, because while in Tallahassee I have made a lot of friends, and even meet my wife. I just hate that I will remember my college days as full of frustration and grief. In time the good will outweigh the bad, I just need to wait