Reviews of OCAD University (University)

Cryptical - BS

Great park behind OCADu, lots of nice people enjoying their own little isolated groups. Has both good tree shaded areas esp most benches, and open sunny grass field. Well maintained area, modernized playground. Only thing better would be more places like this.

Glenn Dickler

Pretentious university focused on milking rich teens parents and design over fine art

Cool Goth

I can smear doody on a canvas too

Omo Benin

Cool building architecture

Darren W

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.

Mário Nicoletti

Please don't waste your time, money, mental and physical health, and just don't go here.

Frame Film Studio

Open doors day appeared to show all the worst qualities of university. Bad architecture of building (inside), no proper guides, tons of ghetto level graffities, useless elevator that can't reach top two floors, and overall depressing art presented for newcomers. To be direct, studying here looks like a waste of money at this point.

Dave Spiers

I really like the design of the building. There is also a playground for kids. A lot of tourist attractions are in the area. Blocks away from the Eaton Centre and Chinatown.

tkj ho

I did 5 years here. 5 years, so I have a good idea of what I'm talking about. Unless you are interested in painting and photography, don't go here. Don't waste your money or time. Probably one of the worst schools. It's a shame I figured it out too late after talking to other students in other schools. I also realized how much of a waste of money it was when I got real jobs. I got the jobs thanks to Seneca and Humber, most skills i learned in OCAD were useless in the real world. - I did 5 years because their administration team Fked me up with my mandatory courses, mixed them up, and gave me bad advice. I went to the schools admin side for courses (their specialized division for making you get all your necessary credits) to make sure I was taking the required courses necessary to graduate after being there for 4 years. They not only gave me wrong advice, but half of my graduating year! There was twice as many grads my year because of their very poor staff giving bad uneducated advice to students. - Their design department is a joke. Not only are there so many irrelevant filler courses, their mandatory ones hardly cover enough. The main idea of going to school is to educate you for the work world. Industry standard CAD programs such as Solid-works and Auto-cad are electives that are always filled, but should be available and mandatory for all design students (except graphic and digital). - In my thesis year, at the end, most teachers were new. They were so surprised that the whole graduating class did not know how to do a basic set of blueprints for a product! THAT IS EXTREMELY ESSENTIAL AND IMPORTANT FOR PRODUCT DESIGN. and OCAD didn't teach that at all!!!! - Also, OCAD was so unorganized that I had a nook for a thesis work space, and it was constantly trashed. I ended up paying for a spot outside school that was more reliable and safe! Let's put it this way. I went to seneca after for some small mechanical tool design course, and I learned way more real world skills in 3 months there than I did in 5 years at OCAD! I only saw how bad this school was after getting in the real world. If you are interested in design, please be careful picking this school. They don't have high standards for students or good staff apparently.

Stylish Senior

Just finishing Third Year, DPXA student. As a student who seeked to learn a wide variety of animation skills I was incredibly dissapointed that in the three years I've been at OCAD. I've been only only able to take a little bit over a semester worth of classes have actually been focused on animation skills. Now please don't mistake that I'm expecting sheridan-level animation classes. But I hardly got any general animation knowledge, aside from second year, and one class in third year. A lot of required courses just sapped out the energy and time I would have rather placed into the assignments where I was actually making art. The required courses I appreciated at first, but looking back I'm starting to see that it felt really rigid to me. I had so many interests and wanted to try out stop-motion, puppet-making, ceramics, printing.. ya know... actual art things : )? But instead we have little wiggling space to experiment and test our horizons, in favour of required classes that may or probably aren't even related to our practice. Too much time stressing over paper and writing and makes me question WHY OCAD even decided to become a university in the first place. The first excuse I always hear is that as artists we need to be able to "critically think!" I don't mind a few lecture courses here and there but when I'm expected to write 8 page papers when I can be putting ALL that time towards a painting it makes me certain OCAD just wanted my money. I've heard horror stories from friends who've failed classes from art history professors who stated themselves that they hate OCAD and yell at the students themselves... HUH?? I'm thankful for being in an art community but this institution needs to be changed from the bottom-up. TLDR; at first I didn't understand the graffiti placed all over the school bathrooms that said, "F**K OCAD," but now, I completely understand. F**K OCAD. Get a college degree instead somewhere else, you'll probably get more out of 2 years at another art college than 4 years at OCAD.

Jacky Ngo

As a recent graduate of OCAD University, there are many pros and cons if you decide to come here to study. Despite being Canada's largest art and design institution, my overall experience here is adequate, but there are some things I wish I could change.

Frank Yang

Hi, i, m m.a graphic design student in art university in Iran and I want to continue my education for phd at the OCAD university. Is there enybody that study in this Uni and help me. Give some info about the professor and etc ... thank u

Larry Markovitz

very unique building

Matthew Watson

It's a great landmark. Go and support the Grad Exhibit every May.

Dmitry Romanenko

I had great profs and great courses and learned many valuable skills in my program (Material Art & Design - Textile).

Zhengyang Song

Toke a continuing education course. Too expensive for what it was and the classroom was always an unusable mess when we got there.

Smith Sark

Beautiful building. Tour buses constantly come by to gawk at it. It's unfortunate (for them, not us) that they don't come inside though- the insides are full of hidden gems. The stairwells are filled with different types of graffiti and media, and there are art installations on multiple floors at times. Bathrooms are always dirty though, but otherwise great place to study fine arts.

Shelley Bahorie

Well known and reputable university, however their website is delivering poor experience, no clear direction and many broken links through out the site. It is not expected from a university, offering programs on "future of digitals" to be so behind on very basic user experience foundations and confusing user interfaces.

Kynan DeSouza

Great facilities.

Malik Nadeem

Beautiful traditional brick building with a modern addition. Lovely people that work in the studio spaces, and a great place to learn. If you're looking for an opportunity to go in the building, I recommend checking out GradEx, which showcases the Graduating class' artwork in May.

Imad Kayyali

Was a student there

Redge S

Mia our goddess <3 from @seebotschat brought me here.

Ian Nastajus

OCAD University acknowledges the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which we stand and create.

Andre Gomes

A building with unique and intriguing architecture design. Quite fitting for a design school inside this building.

Jim Norton

Nice flowing slab.

Enoch W

If you are not planning to have a professional career, you can start here though

丘文刀

Just a beautiful building!

Shyla Tibando

Alsop designed Sharp Centre for Design building on his signature stilts.

La Comel

Scam. They get you anyway they can. Dropping a class? You'll need to pay regardless even if it's before the drop date. $800 LAPTOP FEES?

Syed Refaquat Ibna Rajowan (#rrajowan)

Great infrastructure

Guilherme Gabriel Alves

Loofah

Josh Acei

I love ocad university graphic design but.....

Heath Newton

If you love design, please find a another school. Education quality are extremely low!!!! Real story from a 3rd year student, with a average 80% gpa in total. This school really don't care about students....

Colin Heighton

Don't apply to study here if you're hoping to learn anything technical.

Emily Hue

Iron Rod.. you should use proper grammar or people may discredit your review because you'll end up sounding like a bitter ex student who didn't make the cut... It's critique not critic... OCAD has high points and low points.. The administration has some level of incompetence (paying 50k a year to remover 'graffiti' IN AN ART SCHOOL).. but they are also pretty progressive and attentive when it comes to outreach after finishing your thesis (My one major complaint is the lack of industry team-ups and internships.. They should be mandatory not left up to the teachers). Some teachers are amazing.. some are a little lackluster.. like any institution. Coming from the design program (ID) I found OCAD's 'academic brand focus' was more on the theoretical and user-based research design as opposed to hard engineering skills. If you take ID, make sure to learn SolidWorks!! They teach you to how to be big picture thinkers more than engineering skills (which you need to pick up if you're doing product design). As long as you can tolerate the odd egotistical hipster here and there you'll have a great time!

Jason Broder

Excellent high level education with a serious focus on fine art. Profs are of the highest level. Students are well cared for and standard are very high. Unique gem of education in the centre of our city!

anushree

Beautiful structure from the outside. Great food court across the street. Those students are lucky!

Lenny Leopere

Beautiful building near Toronto Tower

Sharmin Majumder

Beautiful campus, wonderful location and a gorgeous piece of Toronto's downtown core. The campus has a beautiful park that makes you feel you are both within the city and provides an escape at the same time.

Karen Hogg

It was a very nice artistic and creative place, got some innovative photos at this place. Have a look on my instagram: @Wandering_Evo

RGSOUNDF

Been waiting for an email back for 8 days now. You can’t talk on the phone nor go in person or book a meeting via Microsoft teams to save your education. Every course is wait listed even tho i signed up on the day of registration. Either increase your class capacity or hire enough staff so students don’t have to wait a week+ for a response. Ridiculous

Hazard Lee

Didn't study here. Just saying, pencil case building!

paul toman

6th floor

Sérgio Gonçalves

Best place in Ontario to study design, fine arts, and in particular digital media.

Wrynn Geswin

honestly and truly, do not go to this school. it shouldn't even be called a school, it's a corporation. they do not care about you. they won't even pretend to care about you. you will have to figure everything out on your own, and you will be paying them thousands of dollars for absolutely nothing in return. i was incredibly optimistic when i started, OCAD was the only school i even wanted to go to, and my first year went fairly well. ever since the pandemic struck, admin has been useless. they are lazy, unprofessional people who can't be bothered with the concerns of the students who pay their salaries. they admit more students than they know what to do with, which makes course registration a nightmare as you have to literally fight for MANDATORY courses, something NO ONE should have to do when they're paying THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to attend. they refuse to listen to the students when we challenge their decisions, believing that since /they're/ at the top, /their/ opinions must be the right ones. they will not acknowledge you when you ask them why they are charging exorbitant tuition prices for an education equivalent to taking a skillshare course. they will advertise the "hands-on experience" constantly, but i am going on two straight years without stepping foot in a studio or shop because i was outright lied to (told a course would be hybrid only for it to be entirely online) and denied (not able to register for any in person classes due to the abysmal, unfair course registration system.) they treat you as if you're acting entitled for asking for the BARE MINIMUM from them. now i am left with the decision to continue my studies just to get a useless degree at a school that i hate, or drop out and have wasted my money for nothing at all. i ignored all the warnings about the school, and i really wish i hadn't. don't make the same mistake. no school is perfect, but NONE are quite this bad. you can study art and make a career for yourself, but it's not going to happen here. go to a real school instead.

Darien Dorothy Weise

Such a cool and modern-looking building. Very much "Instagrammable" and kind of hard to pick between the outside and the inside in terms of background choices.

Jame Tackett

Taking some continuing studies courses. My learning experience has been adequate.

eva

If you’re an international student considering attending here, don’t. You’ll basically be treated like a cash grab and get no support. The administration is a disaster who won’t listen to students needs and make reckless decisions that screw everyone over. There’s no way of getting into your required classes because they’re all waitlisted or they outright get canceled. If you’re in a more traditional program like drawing and painting or illustration good luck actually learning about art. And if you’re in the animation program even more luck cause it will teach you 0 relevant skills for the industry. Some classes are good but this is more due to good teachers and technicians than the disaster that is this place. Just go somewhere else unless you want to get screwed over by bad administration.

Bhavin Antala

Its a good school right in the heart of downtown TO. have been to couple of project presentations there. The kids have great creativity and their projects reflect that

Taya O.K.

Crazy nice biulding

Andrew Yeung

The building looks cool!

Cubby Van Bueren

J.A.M

susan samanifar

Ie there space for international students.......fr JA ?

Synthia S

I loved the modern feel, they had a great selection of artists. I would certainly go back!

M J

(Translated) University of Design and the Arts of Ontario. Very interesting building. (Original) Університет дизайну та мистецтв Онтаріо. Дуже цікава будівля.

Jennifer Mills

OCAD University (/ˈoʊkæd/ OH-kad), officially the Ontario College of Art and Design University,[2] (French: Université de l’École d’art et de design de l’Ontario) is a public university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school is within the Grange Park neighbourhood, and adjacent to the Art Gallery of Ontario. The school is Canada's largest and oldest educational institution for art and design.[3] OCAD U offers courses through the Faculties of Art, Design, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and alternative programs. The enabling legislation is Ontario College of Art and Design University Act, 2002.[2] OCAD University

Sarah Rose Woods

The vector proof of a famous artist has a Southern helibeint that is effortless convience to mad reflection.

Glen Farrelly

A Fine Arts degree is a colossal waste of money (I'm a BFA Graduate in Drawing and Painting). As long as tuition prices keep increasing each year, you'll end up finding yourself with a large Osap bill at the end of it all working as a barista to pay it off The program itself doesn't teach you how to be your own business. How to market yourself and find your own voice as an artist The Drawing and Painting program won't last very long. Students won't be able to explain to their folks why spending over 20k for four years (not including supplies) is a good investment My advice? Go into Design and if you want to become a better artist go to Toronto School of Art. They have a much smaller teacher to student ratio, there's no time wasted on Liberal study courses when you really prefer to work on your own art, also it's more cost effective (I went there before Ocad, I should've remained there in hindsight) Think about your future and the reality of making it as an artist before investing your money into the arts program! UPDATE. After visiting OCAD during their orientation week unfortunately I have found that this school has now been taken over by SJW'S (social justice warriors). Be very careful. They don't believe in free speech and are offended easily (safe spaces and trigger warnings). Do your research on OCAD culture as well!

gaso lin

Beautiful architecture

Oleksandr M

(Translated) Beautiful building! Bold architecture. (Original) Belo edifício! Arquitetura arrojada.

Lauren Crawford

nice university.... thenewscompany #doinikbarta #ibangla #enewsbdpress #rrajowan #aerobdnews

Edward Nagy

Not a student, just an admirer. My Brother went here and I've alway enjoyed the student presentations in the hallways.

Lisa Leighton

York would have been the better art school.

L Cla

Visited here several weeks ago! Very special! All students working very hard!

Pedram P

Beautiful buildings just beside a huge park.

Drew Richardson

Beautiful place! Worth a visit after visiting the museum which is wright in front of it!

S.J.

It’s cool

Andrew Williams

This isn't review This is to inform that i have found wallet of Chinese or Japanese girl containing credit card, student id and bunch of cards.... I tried to call ocad university but there's no response from them So i have submitted it to TTC Information desk at Lawrence Subway Station The guy there has put your wallet in lost and found section So if you're reading it and you think it's yours you can collect from Lawrence subway station Thanks...

Eddie Rojas

Great place!

unusually suspect

Beautiful arts

Jonica Fearon

What can I say, always changing always the same ????????????

james L.

Great design. Creativity is everywhere.

Preeti Gill

(Translated) Good school (Original) 好学校

hanna amini

poor communication with students (often find things out through instagram rather then student email), admits way more people that they can teach (they count on 50% dropping out in the first year), classes are all waitlisted, elitest staff who became teachers because their careers dried up. go to emily carr

Cheryl Parkin

Beautiful university building.

dooo ss

Portfolio Day 2013 Pros Location Nice people Great looking campus Skills focused classes it seems Lots of studios and equipment Cons Hard to get a chance to talk w profs They are a little too focused on statistics in their presentations Confusing school layout Limited extra curricular activities Space No student housing, rent is $$$$ downtown

João Pedro

It's really a good university. The location is incredible. I' currently attendimng OCAD's 'prestigious' Art and Design program.Great school. Cost benefit ratio is low. I had personal problem and went to talk to the Art an Design program director, he was soooo supportive. This place is my second family.

soel rana

The school lack of resources, it only provide you with temporary low-paid jobs as interns, hired bunch of profs that have no real skills or professional practices (their work backgroud is usually facilitators in various offices, but has no real achievement in term of professionalism). Studio equipments are outdated, staff have no intention serving students well, you have to figure out everything yourself and follow their pace, no management at all, but really good at neglecting students needs, not helpful at all. Courses in the design program are not consistent, a lot of pretentious profs and staff, If you have other schools to go, don't go here, all your money and hopes would be eaten up by the people working here.

Sevvy D

OCAD takes creativity seriously, always has, always will – and as an alumna it trained me well for all things in life. It was rigorous training, don't expect to be flaky in any way, you would be called out for it. In a world there's everything DIY, and usually it's free to Do-it-Yourself. Everything except creative talent. Yes you can be born with a natural inclination to be creative, yet it has to be nurtured to excel in all ways. The flow, the energy, the discovery of re-imagining in this right side of the brain process contributes to growth in all ways, whether it's business graphics and design or EQ and spiritual or mental personal evolution. Thanks OCAD for being a pillar in the Canadian quest for creative excellence. #respect #creativeProcess #HighLevelLearning #RaisetheBar #Niche

Behrad

(Translated) awsm (Original) Awsm