OCAD UNIVERSITY

There are reasons to go here. You’d have thought Scott Pilgrim would have wandered around once or twice.
The building is a unique design, and there is always art on the Second Floor, and right off the elevator on the sixth floor. It’s a good free place to wander around at any time of the day, or night.
And then there’s the yellow staircase. This should be a notorious Toronto location. If one were to say «The Yellow Staircase» everyone should know what people are talking about.
It’s at its best when the graffiti is up. This is an art school, after all, and they normally know what they’re doing. But it’s painted over now and then. Mind you this just clears the canvas for another batch of constantly changing insights.
My real question: How many people have used that yellow backdrop to take naked pictures? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
I can not count myself amongst them — but still, I wonder. It is an art school, after all.

I personally know several artists and designers that have received amazing jobs after graduation because they were pushed to create amazing portfolios by their professors at OCADU.
I also love the fact that with the new leadership, you can do a Major in 2D illustration, but also do a minor in Digital Futures, allowing you to work with code and get into game design, and be not only an amazing artist, but also a coder or work with robotics if you should choose. Choose your future.

My experience with OCAD U as a student has overall not been positive. Still, keep in mind my major was illustration so I cannot say much for other majors, I really hope it is better. The school provides little to no help in getting jobs after graduation.
Good:
Location, food court nearby has variety despite the size, free admission to AGO. Mostly quality MACs in the labs, but finding a spot can be hard during certain times of the day. The people are usually polite and nice. Relatively inexpensive (though with the new uni branding who knows how long that’ll last). The building looks pretty at night.
Bad:
Lack of space. Most importantly in my experience Education is not too practical, at least in my major. There were a few good profs that really care and teaches straightforward skills, but for the most part the courses are full of theoretical and conceptual BS. Majority of profs are snooty and really biased and only like what they like. They won’t train you, but merely give you the assignment, say a few things and hand it back. They might be interesting people to occasionally converse with, but they fail to deliver as mentors (with a few exceptions). I hear there isn’t a strong sense of community. Also lacks the post-​secondary campus experience.
Overall:
If you want to be experimental, your not dead set on what you want, but know you like art and looking to try new things OCAD would be a good school. Also for illustration, if you want to be an editorial and maybe storybook illustrator it might be a good choice.
Others in my program and even those outside admit If you want to perfect hardcore fundamental skills especially drawing, and also software, this school doesn’t provide the means to do so, you’re on your own. Especially those who are looking to break into animation, film, game, entertainment. Comics are hit and miss. If you want a foot in industries that require a STRONG foundation in drawing, painting and digital software, this is likely not the school for you. I had to learn mostly those skills that on my own and from friends who are in a different art school.
I dropped out of OCAD recently and transferring to a school/​program that better suits me, I wished I had done it earlier. It’s just a place to go and get a degree. One of my breaking points for me was, when I learned more from online tutorials than I did at OCAD, also my sheridan friends being mostly happy with their programs, and I never felt that way about ocad. I knew what career I wanted to do, what skills I needed, and OCAD was not giving me that. I’m not saying it is 100% awful, but it certainly didn’t fit me.
I’m glad I took the advice: you must be a self-​learner to succeed in art and not depend on school. That is true, however if your paying thousands of $ and 4 years of your life, your school should do a generous bit of the teaching, otherwise why not just be self taught? (now if you wanna be a teacher…). Throughout the entire years I was doing projects/​practise outside class, getting an internship and generating interest, so please don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m a lazy student just because I gave this school a bad review (thought I guess its hard to be fully engaged if you don’t enjoy it). I’m just a student that figured what I want and that ocad wasn’t the best match.
If you feel ANY school is sucking the joy you once had of making art instead of making it stronger, take that into consideration.
Sorry for the long post (and if there are typos), but I hope this helps.

I don’t go to OCAD so I can’t comment on the actual education. I’m going to copy everyone else and just talk about this campus/​building, because it’s quite the sight.
From the outside it looks like a horribly-​coloured kaleidoscopic eyesore. Black and white top, perched precariously on multicoloured… I don’t know, but they definitely look inadequate for the weight they are holding.
Either way it’s a cool place to infiltrate, while dressed as hipsters. Make sure you have bags under your eyes, a spiral bound notebook, and some stubble (if you are a guy). My friend and I successfully infiltrated this building to discover the following awesome features:
1) outside the building are bike racks. Souped up fixies galore. I spent a full ten minutes drooling.
2) The doors leading in are tinted orange. You pass through an orange tinted room before really entering the building. The effect is psychedelic, even without drugs.
3) Taking the elevator up to the top floor (because it wouldn’t take us anywhere else… weird…), you will arrive in the black and white box thing. Wandering around, we found lots of cool art and designs on the wall. We found classrooms with ergonomically designed chairs. We found hip modern furniture. We found window enclaves painted neon colours. I wish we had found a bouncy castle.
4) The study halls have extension cords hanging from the ceiling in self-​retracting coils. Need to plug in your laptop? Just reach up, pull, and plug. Awesome!
5) We found a course evaluation form. It was designed and laid out impeccably. I’d actually read my syllabuses if they were so clean and efficient.
Looking out the window, you’ll notice how high up you are, and how not visibly supported you are. Either cool, or terribly frightening. Or both.
Behind OCAD there is a park and a shallow fountain-​pool thing that is fun to wade through. I bet that’s where all the ocad students get their raves on.

That main building was quite a sight to see and they allowed us to go up to the top and peer out the windows.
On the top level, there are a few showcases with art and designs that I thought were very nice but, I’m no artist. I can only appreciate things as I see them. The students seem very artsy fartsy and they had good things to show in the hallways.
The world needs art. It makes our living space so much more liveable. Art and design is even in the very can of cola that I’m drinking right now.

How can one NOT love a building that resembles a checkered rectangular prism held up by a fistful of multicoloured pencils? Brilliant. It’s one of my favorite structures in North America.

By far the best idea school on the planet… period. You may not learn the best technical skills, (i.e. computer etc.) but you will learn to think outside of the box, create and develop unique concepts… something that is desperately lacking and in increasing demand no matter what industry you go in to.

I have no idea about the quality of the education provided within the walls of this art institution. However, if Will Alsop’s brilliant design for this gravity-​defying skybound rectangle on pencils inspires its students as much as it moves folks like me who pass by, then OCAD is probably turning out geniuses.
With Frank Gehry’s fantastic new design for the Art Gallery of Ontario just steps away, these blocks are the epicenter of great architecture in Toronto.

Now I am not an overly critical person, save for the gross generalizations I might make about contemporary art, artsy types, or just plain types in general. Okay I am critical. But I will allow for some room in the narrow space I give to the arts scene when it comes to some of the tremendous architecture in this city.
Tremendous might not be the perfect word to describe the OCAD building (located in downtown Toronto), it would be more apt for me to call it insane. Even the wacky fine arts students, peddling around on unicycles with purple hair, balloon skirts and polka dot sneakers cannot top their schoolhouse which looks like a giant, windowed shoebox sitting atop four long — and I mean REALLY long — coloured pencils.
Even if you do not own a flat, black, leather portfolio case, even if you prefer PC to Mac, even if Barney Rubble is a name far less foreign to you than Matthew Barney, OCAD is a quick sight, well worth checking out.