Education Matters: PreCollege at Ringling College

By Ryan G. Van Cleave | Photos by Karen Arango

For more than 85 years, Ringling College of Art and Design has been preparing and educating artists and designers to turn their passion into their profession. But since 1978, they’ve gone from just working with college-age students to working with even younger students through their Continuing Studies program. While numerous summer and academic-year course offerings are targeted at a young audience—Video Game Writing and Design, Guerilla Filmmaking Workshop, and Experimental Animation, to name just a few—the crown jewel of youth education at Ringling College is PreCollege.

The PreCollege program runs from mid-June to mid-July each year. For four weeks, high school students live in the dorms on campus, use a Ringling College ID and email, eat at Hammond Commons, and take a full load of classes that offer an in-depth immersion in major areas of study and give hands-on studio instruction. For those who want more, there are plenty of optional mini-workshops and other educational opportunities such as Writing Horror, ZBrush Digital Sculpting, Stop Motion and Entrepreneurial Thinking.

Diane Zorn, Assistant Director of Operations for Continuing Studies, says that PreCollege “is transformative for a 16- to 18-year-old student. It’s an opportunity for them to take on the responsibilities of college-level learning.”

Those who complete the four-week program earn 3 college credits. At the end of the program, twelve $5,000 scholarships for the first year of Ringling College are awarded—ten scholarships for academic achievement, and two for the Student Life Leadership Initiative.

Zorn notes that “One of the real selling points is that almost all PreCollege instruction is delivered by Ringling College faculty or alumni. Because of that, students get a very accurate reflection of the first-year experience at Ringling College.”

Ringling College faculty member Martin Murphy knows about PreCollege as both an instructor there and as a father whose children participated. “I am grateful that my son and daughter attended Ringling College of Art and Design’s PreCollege Perspective program. Living on campus was good for them to spread their wings, to meet new people with very similar interests. (It also proved helpful to ease the separation anxiety for a potentially overprotective parent who will go nameless.)

“Attending PreCollege confirmed my daughter’s choice to pursue her interests in biology over art, and for my son, it confirmed his interest in art. The program allowed my son to get a taste of a variety of different majors Ringling College has to offer which helped him to decide to apply to Game Art over another major. He has gone from spending most of his time-consuming games to making them and finding time to exercise.

“I personally was most impressed by the academic rigor of the program, and the availability of prestigious artists and full-time faculty who taught my kids. I have not seen this type of accessibility to highly-trained professionals for young people anywhere else, especially at larger research colleges where teaching is treated as an insignificant part of the job. At Ringling College, it is clear to me that the art of teaching and the learner’s experience with practical skills is front and center. My kids seemed to talk most about the social events and who they met, but I noticed a huge jump in the quality of the work. When they got there, they took their coursework more seriously, and they no longer acted like high school students—the prospect of being successful at college got real for them.”

Like so many other parents of PreCollege students, Murphy strongly recommends the program, even if your son or daughter demonstrates only a cursory interest in the visual arts. At PreCollege, they’ll have a good time, earn an elective credit, and get a delicious taste of what it’s like to be a student at a world-class art college.

“The Ringling PreCollege experience is one of the most amazing, fun, and educational undertakings you could ever have,” adds Dr. Larry Thompson, President of Ringling College. “Why? You get to know what it is like to attend an art and design college (specifically Ringling College) so that you can determine if this is really what you want. Most PreCollege students love it; a few decide this is not for them. Either way, because you’ve attended PreCollege at Ringling College, you will know yourself better, be a better creative thinker, and have a much better idea of what YOU want in your life.”

Whether you’re a traditional college student at Ringling College, you attend PreCollege, or you take advantage of the many course offerings through Continuing Studies, you’ll be supported and encouraged by award-winning faculty who are practicing professionals. You’ll learn how to create work that has purpose and meaning. And you’ll push yourself to be a better person who understands and harnesses the incredible power of creativity.

For more information about Continuing Studies at Ringling College of Art and Design, please visit www.ringling.edu/ContinuingStudies, or call 941.955.8866.