Having received hundreds of letters and spoken to hundreds of people, I can categorically say that there are people called teachers in university art departments who know nothing, wield power corruptly, and are highly destructive to one young mind after another.

Listen carefully:

If you are an art student or art history student in a college or university that permits such people to teach or worse, run the art departments, or if you know someone who is: pack up your things and leave. You may have friends on campus, but you are wasting your time and your parents' money.... and learning nothing but how to be cynical.

You may need to finish the current semester in order to protect partially your investment, but you are not going to find anything that will help you in a future career in art at such a place.

If you think circumstances are such that you can organize a student rebellion, and if you have support from other students, and perhaps even a faculty member or two, then let us know and we'll try to support you online, but nobody has to sit and take it very long in America.

If you learn to be a great artist, and draw and paint superlatively, no matter how you learn it, regardless of the lack of any degrees you may have, there is a growing appreciation and market for great realist painting, and your chances of making a career as an artist are better than any degree minus skills from most colleges can get you.

That said, nobody can guarantee the results of any course of action. Ultimately, you are the final arbiter of your own life and actions.

Fred