# Full Sail University



## renegadeblack (Nov 11, 2008)

Since I don't see anywhere else that would seem appropriate to post this:

Anyone go/went to Full Sail University? I'm looking to go for lighting specifically. Comments?


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## soundlight (Nov 11, 2008)

Do a search. There are probably almost a dozen posts on this topic.


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## derekleffew (Nov 11, 2008)

Moving this thread to the Education forum. renegadeblack, CB member RickySmith is currently attending.

Type (or cut 'n' paste) "full sail" site:www.controlbooth.com into google.


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## porkchop (Nov 12, 2008)

There are a few other post out there that I can think of off the top of my head, but I haven't said anything of real worth in any, so I'll post on this one. 

I've never been to Full Sail, I've never seen the campus, I've looked at the curriculum, never taken classes there, but I work with 3 grads and to me Full Sail seems like a technician amplifier. What I mean by that is, if you are a douche and you only care about very specific topics and have no common sense. You will be a douche that knows a lot about things few others care about, with no common sense but think you know everything. If you are an all around tech, with perhaps a specialty you're looking for, looking to learn how to do the job well then you will absorb a world of information and be a useful technician.

Full Sail gets beat up because it is a school focused purely towards theatre and no matter the program no school will turn out 100% good technicians in 100% of peoples eyes. So each "poor" tech looks bad on the school where at other bigger schools that tech might still be as worthless but not be as critically looked at. Personally I would say the experiences that can't be taught in a classroom that you get at a 4 year university are worth the extra money, but that's not what you asked.

As a final statement i would say you will get out what you are willing to look for and put in. If you only want to know a very specific bit of theatre and not pick up some of the overall knowledge that can be picked up in school you are also not likely to pick that up in the field. If you go to learn everything you can, it'll be like condensing years of good worthwhile experiance into a much smaller time. Either way remember just cause you learned it one way doesn't mean it's the only way.


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## Edrick (Nov 12, 2008)

What kind of questions do you have about the school? I attend the school for the Bachelors in Film Program and I'm also employed by the school as a Behind The Scenes Tour Guide so any questions you need answered I can get answered for you. 

Trust me I'm not afraid to give an honest opinion of the school either even though I do work for the BTS Department. 

As far as specifically for lighting goes, if you're looking to go to a school for a theater program where you want to do lighting design for plays or are you looking to do lighting for concert and events? The Show Production Associates program is full of students who either would like to go into the theater industry after graduation or have come from High School Theaters and that's how they got interested. Depending on the type of lighting you want to do will depend on if Full Sail would be the best choice or another school. It is perfectly feasable to attend the school and do Show Production with the intention of working in the fine arts world doing theater. However Full Sail would probably not be the best choice for that as we don't have a theater. You can based on the information you receive (as long as you put the effort into it) learn enough however to go into that industry. 

Now if you want to do lighting for concerts or events then by all means you defiantly will learn a lot and be able to do that. Any who, if you could let me know more specifically what type of "lighting" you want to do I can better answer your question. Also note however that there is no "lighting" specific type of degree and there is no fine arts bachelors all the degrees are Bachelors of Science as you will be receiving the technical aspect of everything with some theory based. However no wear as much as a Fine Arts.


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## renegadeblack (Nov 12, 2008)

Ricky Smith said:


> What kind of questions do you have about the school? I attend the school for the Bachelors in Film Program and I'm also employed by the school as a Behind The Scenes Tour Guide so any questions you need answered I can get answered for you.
> 
> Trust me I'm not afraid to give an honest opinion of the school either even though I do work for the BTS Department.
> 
> ...



I am mostly looking for theatrical lighting. They had a rep come give a presentation at our school and that was the general impression I got that they don't really have anything for theatre lighting design. If I remember correctly he did say that there was something along the lines of that I may be able to find something that would apply, but nothing specific for it. Would you say that there are students who go there for light design?


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## Footer (Nov 12, 2008)

renegadeblack said:


> I am mostly looking for theatrical lighting. They had a rep come give a presentation at our school and that was the general impression I got that they don't really have anything for theatre lighting design. If I remember correctly he did say that there was something along the lines of that I may be able to find something that would apply, but nothing specific for it. Would you say that there are students who go there for light design?



If you want theatre, as in the art of theatre, Full Sail is not for you. Full Sail is catered towards music production, not lighting the stage. It is more of a technical program then a design program. If you want to be a lighting designer, go to a 4 year school.


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## renegadeblack (Nov 12, 2008)

Footer said:


> If you want theatre, as in the art of theatre, Full Sail is not for you. Full Sail is catered towards music production, not lighting the stage. It is more of a technical program then a design program. If you want to be a lighting designer, go to a 4 year school.



That was the general impression that I got. Any suggestions? Anyone?


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## derekleffew (Nov 12, 2008)

If you want to be a professional lighting designer (and are sure, and who is when they're 18?), go to a school that has professional lighting designers. NYU Tisch School of the Arts comes immediately to mind, as does North Carolina School of the Arts, Carnegie-Mellon, Yale, etc. However, there's a school of thought that says one should get a liberal arts education before going for an MFA in design. See this post from this thread, and look through the many others in the Education forum.


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## Edrick (Nov 12, 2008)

For that I would avoid Full Sail I'd go to an actual Liberal Art / Some type of Art School. You won't learn about theater lighting design here you will learn concert lighting and if you want to take it on your self to learn theater lighting you can apply your knowledge but a 4 year college / regular art college would be more beneficial. 

Plus let me warn you and everyone!

WARNING: Full Sail is a BUSINESS, the people you speak with before enrollment, admission representatives, BTS Tour, and the people who go around to different states trying to get students to apply are all sales people they are meant to get you to the school and they will sell it like a car.


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## GreyWyvern (Nov 13, 2008)

porkchop said:


> .....
> I've never been to Full Sail, I've never seen the campus, I've looked at the curriculum, never taken classes there, .....
> 
> Full Sail gets beat up because it is a school focused purely towards theatre and.....
> ...



Okay, if you're looking for advice renegadeblack, I wouldn't listen to someone who's never been to Full Sail, seen the campus, or taken classes there. I on the other hand, not only have been to Full Sail, seen the campus, and looked at the curriculum, but I have graduated from the Show Production and Touring program. I will do my best to answer your question, renegadeblack.

Full Sail *does not* focus purely on theatre. The main draw of the school is the Recording Arts program and that is what gives the school the bad rep it seems to have. A good amount of the people in that program are musicians that are thinking that if they learn how to run a studio and open their own, they can get their "big break". Half of the students are in the Recording Atrs program and the other half are in the several other programs. Show Production and Touring is the program that would be what you are looking at. Not even that program focuses purely on theatre. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The *one* course that has any chance of being misconstrued as a theatre class, is Intro to Lighting. That course might be better named Intro to Color. It deals mainly with colors, how they interact, how to use gels, and other related things. The focus of the program is live sound, lighting, and video. It is almost entirely on the side of concert touring and has very little to do with theatre. Many of the principles of lighting are the same for both applications, but the program swings it towards concert events.

The structure of the program is about 55% classrom setting and 45% hands-on, do-it-yourself labs, in which the instructor is there just to answer your questions and make sure do don't jack anything up to badly. They are totally okay with things getting messed up or broken as long as it happened because you were trying to learn what to do and what not to do. It is much closer to real life situations than a class room at a typical school, and that is what makes it great. They *want* you to touch the gear, play with stuff, and learn how things work and what they do by doing it yourself and not just watching intstructors or upperclassmen doing it.

With that said... If you are interested in live show production and touring, than Full Sail is the place to go. If you are interested in theatre, don't go to Full Sail. Find a school with a very good tech program that is going to teach you theatre lighting, stagecraft, and everything else you need and go there.

Hope this helped renegadeblack.


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## tenor_singer (Nov 13, 2008)

I have a question for all of you Full Sail Graduates...

I have an ex student who graduated from Full Sale and has been working as a computer salesman for the past three years. He cannot find a job in the major field of study that he took there. 

How long did it take for you to find a job upon graduation and was it decent enough pay to cover the huge student loans that have probably been incurred?

The kid I'm talking about has a brain mortgage of over $90k and isn't even working in his field.


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## cdub260 (Nov 14, 2008)

tenor_singer said:


> I have a question for all of you Full Sail Graduates...
> 
> I have an ex student who graduated from Full Sale and has been working as a computer salesman for the past three years. He cannot find a job in the major field of study that he took there.
> 
> ...



While I can't speak for the Full Sail graduates, being a UC Irvine graduate myself, the entertainment industry is tough, even on the tech side. Odds are, at least during the early years of a theatre career one is most likely to end up doing freelance work. No matter how skilled you are or how hard a worker, there will be times when there is simply no work to be had. Staff positions are hard to come by, and even if you do land one, many theatres shut down within a few years of opening. 

I used to have to work to support my theatre habit rather than earning a living doing theatre. I had been in the industry for ten years and had been out of college for two before I finally began to earn a living doing theatre. That was when I started in my current position as ME for the Pageant of the Masters. Over the 19 years I've been doing theatre I've seen people without even a fraction of my skill and ability go on to higher levels of success than I ever imagined, but at the same time I've seen people with more skill and raw talent in their little fingers than I will ever have in a lifetime of working in theatre who had to leave the industry and get "real" jobs because they simply could not earn a living doing theatre.

There really is no way to predict who will make it in the entertainment industry. There's no magic formula for success. In general though, success in theatre requires a combination of skill, raw talent, a good work ethic and perseverance. The last is probably the most important, but even with all these things going for you, you can still fail. Still, while it can be a long, hard, bumpy road, if you love theatre, it's a career worth pursuing.


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## tenor_singer (Nov 14, 2008)

When I graduated from college, I remember my university hosting job fairs, funding an effective career planning and placement center and bragging about a high percentage of job placements. I was wondering if Full Sail hosted such activities, funded such an entity and made the same boasts.

My concern for my old student (and for my future ones who are also talking about full sail) is that they're going to spend up to five times the cost of a regular university (unless they go really high end) and not be placed in the career upon which they spent all of their money.


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