OCAD University

Waste of time, effort and money. Terrible school. I deeply regret graduating from OCAD University. It was a lot of work and has never been helpful.

Save yourselves thousands upon thousands of dollars and the feeling of being cheated. You can learn anything art related from successful professionals online for memberships or PPV fees that amount to maybe $100 a year- and that's with the added bonus of not having to deal with the disorganized school administration system. They weren't great before the pandemic but now it's bad bad. Like incoherent and dismissive responses for concerns and inquiries bad, like are we speaking the same language bad.Some professors are lovely and know how to motivate their students to step into their own skins while others project their own personal tastes onto you until they break your spirit.Anyway I hope you like desperately fighting to get into classes you need to graduate that are sometimes offered only one term a year which means sometimes you're wasting months of your life at a time LOL.

Edit 2: The school closes at 10pm every day now. The school used to be open until midnight.How are students supposed to finish their projects on time if they are kicked out of the space they create art in?Edit 1: This school does not care about you after you graduate. They only care about taking your money and kick you out the door.I just graduated and was in the area this weekend and needed to use the bathroom. The security told me no.I said I am an alumni and the security still said no.The bathrooma at the main building and Annex building were open before the pandemic. Now security is very tight.Terrible school and unwelcoming.

It’s my second year in OCAD and 80% of my class are online classes. That’s not what I expected from an university. Professors barely teaches anything. I rather go watch some YouTube videos than wasting money and time on this.

I went for illustration program 2020. We end up graduating very suddenly due COVID season and no way to say goodbye to classmates and teachers. It’s not easy to study there I think my classmates are a lot better than me so I often feel stressed and less confident. What I got out of my 4 year study is OCADU really boost your creativity and I do see that I become a creative individual through out the 4 years professional training. I feel grateful about it. My advice is OCADU should have intern, co-op opportunities for students. Most of students graduated from school are becoming freelancers and designers but for art there’s much more that we can do for careers.

On our tour of Toronto we were shown the daring futuristic building of the Sharp Centre for Design. It is located 3 blocks to the west of University Ave and easily accessed from the downtown Toronto (about 10 minutes' walk from our hotel, Shangri La Toronto).Today, the building inaugurated in 2004, is a widely recognizable city landmark. The structure resembling an intergalactic spaceship, is a box, notably elevated from the ground and supported by pillars varying in colors and their angles.The feat of the modern architectural thought, the Sharp Centre for Design, is the joint work of the famous British architect Will Alsop in partnership with Toronto-based Robbie/Young + Wright Architects. The design received many influential awards and praises of the world architectural and engineering organizations.Looking to the south, down McCaul St, enjoy the view of the CN Tower.Please bear in mind that this amazing building doesn't require a tour, admission, or exploring its interior; it can be simply viewed as a stop of your tour of Toronto.

I’ve attended OCAD for 3 years. I haven’t learned a thing. Finally I’ve decided to transfer to a better school.Let me tell you, the quality of education is not worth the money. Just watch a YouTube video for free.Their website is impossible to manoeuvre. Trying to access the online textbooks is a nightmare.There is no student support what so ever. It’s impossible to get a hold of a single human being. The only way to contact them is through email and they take weeks to answer. They direct you back to their website instead of helping you.Throughout high school all I wanted was to be accepted into OCAD. This is why I stayed for three years, even though I’ve learned next to nothing. The professors made us feel like we were un welcome. I had one professor who kept saying how much he didn’t like our generation and how much he wished he was back in the 90s.They’re short in teachers, Therefore I couldn’t get into one class that is mandatory and it held me back. I was on the waitlist third in line. I didn’t realize that I had to except my waitlist position through email and that I only had two days to do so so I missed my spot because I was in BC. In what world do we have to accept an email to take our position on the waitlist I thought that once you sign up on the waitlist, that’s it, if they get to you you’re in.It’s clear that the school doesn’t care about the students at all. All they care about, is keeping up the reputation and making money. After having just moved to Toronto, and being so alone, I went to the guidance counsellor to seek help about my struggles with accessing the online website and textbooks. The counsellor basically told me that he couldn’t help me and sent me on my way. I was so excited to finally speak to a human face-to-face after emailing back-and-forth, insisting that I needed to speak with somebody in person. And all he did was tell me he couldn’t help. I walked home and cried the whole way.There are no instructions on how to do anything you’re basically teach yourself, everything you know. the course outlines are vague. The professors seem like they don’t know what they’re doing and that they don’t want to be there. They’d rather be home or on vacation.I don’t blame them though. I blame whoever runs the school. Not to mention the interior is hideous, whose idea was it to paint blue, orange, yellow and green doors inside of a concrete prison.The OCAD cafeteria is disgusting. It’s full of sketchy people because it’s open to the public and people seek shelter there. I am all for helping people who are in need of shelter, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for the University’s cafeteria to be that space. There have been times where I didn’t feel the safest.I could go on… I’ve never actually spoken to a classmate who enjoyed their time at OCAD. Everyone says the same thing, at this point, they’re just there for the diploma.OCAD has been a disappointment and a waste of three years. I advise you choose another school.

The architecture from their building’s are something else if you enjoy photography; check it out!

It's a great art school, all I recommend is going to college first THEN coming here. You won't gain any real life experience (in the graphic design industry), but that's really up to you. Network, make friends, show up to your classes, and honestly have fun. OCAD is really about yourself and how you make it out to be. Also a tip! Check your professors rating on rate my prof. That can be the difference between an awesome semester or a terrible one. Do summer + spring courses, even if you're on track. It's nice to have a relaxing fall and winter semester than be overwhelmed with courses. I only recommend this place for students not fresh out of high school.

Ready for your bachelor in design that nobody is gonna appreciate? Well pay up! Because we’re short on courses, professors, studios, AND running out of cash!!!But seriously, OCAD is great especially if you’re coming into the drawing and painting program, no shortage of respectable professors here. It’s also great (or terrible, depending on how you look at things) as your first step into becoming a licensed architect/interior designer. Well it’s quite bad, they won’t give you what you need to work, but if you have the luxury of going to another REAL program for accreditation it might work out quite well for you in the long long term. They will build a solid foundation on how to think critically and approach problems, and it’s not something you can simply pick up later down the road. Or you know, you may also not get the education I described because literally every class has an absurdly long wait list and they don’t really plan on doing anything about it. I can also confirm that everything said in Drew Richardson’s review from 5 years ago is true, and you should read that review if you consider coming to OCAD for design.If you’re a privileged member of society, OCAD can be a good choice. Adult daycare? Sure, why not. You can have fun.Graduate study at OCAD… well you really should be putting your efforts somewhere else.Learning zone is your friend.