University of Wisconsin-Superior

Overall the University of Wisconsin-Superior is the best fit for me. All of my fellow classmates are very helpful and kind, my professors are down to earth and are always there to help me when I need it. The campus life is always full of fun things to do and there is never a dull moment as a YellowJacket!

I am an arts kid and have gone here many times in the past few years for honors bands and choirs. While I cannot speak for other departments I can verifiably say that the music department is amazing. It is full of great people and they have a very nice facility. The band director (Pamela Bustos) is a very kind and super sweet lady. She cares about every one of her students and you are able to just sit down and have a conversation with her about anything, it’s great. I love the music department and would highly recommend if the arts is something you’re considering.

I am glad to have picked this school and been accepted on campus. I have grown a lot since my first day here. I have met a wide array of people from all over the world with diverse backgrounds. It is a welcoming environment in every room or setting you to enter. People get to know you by name which gives you a small-town feel but big enough to still be meeting new people every day.

I have very mixed feelings about The University of Wisconsin-Superior (UWS), but that's because my experience at this institution was not only what I had hoped it would be, nor what I was lead to believe it would be. I transferred to UWS in 2016 because they were one of the only institutions that offered both a undergraduate and graduate program in the study of Art Therapy. It was my dream to specialize in Art Therapy because I really wanted to combine my passion for art with my desire to make a difference in the mental health field. When I had met with my advisor, she boasted about the undergraduate and graduate program's prowess, and how it was one of the best in the Midwest during that time . It really seemed like a dream come true for me, since I would be able to complete all of my education at one institution for a fairly reasonable price. Things started out fairly well at UWS, as I had wonderful professors and small class sizes. Unfortunately, I found out a year into my undergraduate program that the graduate Art Therapy program was not accredited with the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), and because of that it would be harder to receive approval for a license from the AATA board upon graduation. A licence is required to practice Art Therapy, so it's an extremely important that students can obtain a licence after graduation. UWS wasn't interested in fulfilling the necessary requirements to meet the accreditation requirements, as stated by the faculty that worked in the department, so instead administration had increased the amount of internship hours and workload to compensate for the lack of accreditation. I felt deceived because I felt as though this was something that should've been disclosed during the initial meeting with advising staff, so that way students, including myself, could make an informed decision about whether or not UWS would be the best choice for them based on career goals. I had based my educational and career goals on obtaining both of my degrees from UWS, and therefore bought a house and relocated myself for these programs. Learning that I would either have to leave to find a new graduate program, or accept the lack of accreditation was extremely frustrating for me and may other students in similar situations. Sadly, prospects only became worse as time went on. As I neared graduation from the undergraduate program in 2018, the administration decided to cut the Art Therapy graduate program all together, because they felt as though it wasn't preforming as well as they had hoped in terms of enrollment numbers. When this happened, I immediately met with my advisor, who not only had a cavalier attitude about what had just happened, but openly admitted that she had seen this coming for the last few years. I was floored by this, as was the other 15+ students this decision had impacted. Never once was it mentioned that the graduate program was in danger of being cut, especially when students such as myself were receiving the sales pitch about how well-known and respected the Art Therapy programs were. A lot of the students, myself included, were not even aware of how useless an undergraduate degree in Art Therapy is without the companion graduate degree. Not only can a person not practice without a licence, but they can't practice without a graduate degree. Simply put, this renders the undergraduate degree practically useless. It's too specific to be used for any other field, yet it's not enough to actually allow for work or practice within the field of Art Therapy. UWS's answer to all of this? Either pack up and leave to find a new program somewhere else, or stay on campus and enroll in the graduate counseling program, another program that isn't accredited... So, as I reflect on my experience at UWS, I feel overcome with mixed emotions. I have nothing but feelings of warmth towards the exceptional professors that I had the absolute pleasure of learning from, but profound sadness as I see an institution that values the dollar more than the overall well-being and success of its students.