AiMag: When did you graduate High School? Jordan: I graduated from Lutheran North High School in 2010. What were/are your dream job? Oh man! I had so many (laughs) but to be honest, I ha always dreamed of being an entertainer and being in the industry where I could do so many things. How did you choose your school of choice? What’s your major there? It was my senior year in high school, I had decided that I wanted to go to an art school and at first I wanted to go to NYU. But to keep a long story short I decided to go to Columbia College Chicago. It was a little closer and easier for me travel back and forth home. How did you hear about the Art Institute of Saint Louis? What made you come back to St. Louis? I actually heard about the Art Institute of Saint Louis after I moved back home. So maybe about early May because I had just finished up my sophomore year of college. I packed all of my stuff and said to myself that I wasn’t coming back. Then, I decided to look up schools to attend that had a Fashion Program and then I came across something on Internet that said Ai was being built and would open its doors in July. …… I moved back to saint Louis for personal reasons. What was your original path to get to your career? Hmmmm. Well I was going to school for Fashion Design, so I’m was just going to continue to take classes, snag a job in retail, build up my portfolio and produce some garments. If you could change one thing would you and how would you go about changing it? I wouldn’t change anything. I think the decisions that I have chosen were for the better and will continue to benefit me in the long run. What advice would you give a future Ai student? Or even a future college student? I would tell them to just “ Live out your dreams, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise and don’t lose that talent, passion and drive but also be chill about everything. Don’t ever stress yourself out What s the difference between Columbia Chicago and Aristo? There difference between the two schools is that Columbia had variety of programs and sub programs under majors and more classes. Plus it was huge school and it had buildings everywhere. It was a creative environment. Were there any challenges you faced switching?
Challenges……. The main concerns that I had were my credits transferring and my graduating on time … we all know the story behind. It frustrating when transferring, especially when you have been to a school 2 or 3 years prior and they tell you one thing and then you’re finding out it will be a year later or two…. Such a huge contradiction but hey what can you do. Name some strengths and weakness of both AiStL and Columbia? Columbia College Chicago strengths were the networking, the established name of the school, creative environment. The weaknesses were some methods of teaching, etc. Ai of St. Louis strengths was personal interaction between student and professor, being able to create and establish it. The weaknesses is that it’s not so much following other Art Institutes protocol, it may be a new school in “ Saint Louis” but it’s not a new school. The levels of classes, you have students who are in a higher-class level and some who are not. It should never be a mix of two. The school is small and what are they going to do in the next 2 years when the school grows. The lack of communication is a huge weakness. Did you ever get stress the other school? How did you deal with it? Yes, all the time. When you’re away and realize how much money that your parent/parents are coming out of pocket with…you’re going to be like…okay wait! What is going here? I’m spending way too much money on supplies everyday and I’m not really learning anything that could be beneficial. I need to find a job, I need to network and I need to make sure I’m doing assignments and making good grades.