Portfolio students gear up for college

Four years of classes, ten hours a week of study, and a lifetime of work, all in preparation for a chance to conquer art school-- and from there-- the rest of the art world.

At least, that’s what the seven seniors in Portfolio Art this year hope.

Names and acronyms such as MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), SVA (School of Visual Arts), Ringling (Ringling College of Art and Design), and SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), unknown to the general population, are common in the Portfolio room, along with artistic terms.

Senior Laura Statman is excited to be attending the School of Visual Arts next year.

“It has a great faculty and a cartooning major. I went there for a pre-college [program] and loved it.”

The Portfolio students’ interests range from traditional painting, to photography, to sculpture, to cartooning, to animation. Accordingly, their ideal college experiences vary as well.

Madeleine Roodberg, who will be attending the Tisch School of Arts at New York University next year, wants to take more liberal arts classes.

“I am going to be able to take photography for the next four years, which will be a very pleasant major for me, I think,” Roodberg said. “But I’m also going to be able to take business classes at NYU.”

Statman is gladly dropping traditional school subjects in favor of all art, all the time.

“I’m looking forward to being with other cartooning students.”

Each of the students has different goals for college and after. This affects what they want to achieve in Portfolio.

Roodberg is using Portfolio class as a stepping stone for her goals.

“I will be pursuing photography in college and my main goal is to get into the music business,” Roodberg said. “My thought process was that photography is my background, and I don’t have qualifications to apply to any music business programs... I’m also going to be able to take business and music business classes and build up my resume from there.”

Statman, said that Portfolio is good practice for the real world.

“If you want to be a working artist this is a helpful class,” Statman said. “Less of learning how to draw and more learning how to work as a functioning artist. We have really strict deadlines and quotas and stuff.”

Statman also warned students who are considering taking Portfolio to think carefully.

“Take portfolio only if you are really serious about it, only if you really want to go to art school specifically because it is hard.”

Regardless of their interests or where they hope to end up, all of the students agree that they are more than ready to graduate and become successful artists in the real world.

Written by Meghan Kearney