John Paul the Great Catholic University

If you are considering attending John Paul the Great Catholic University, do yourself a favor and attend any other place. Going to this school will attain you nothing but disappointment and frustration. This school claims to be a Catholic college for the modern arts, and yet they will sacrifice program quality and student creativity for the narcissistic whims of the lead faculty and for appealing to donors who know nothing about film themselves. I attended this school in order to pursue my animation dreams. I was attracted to it for its location, small size, and decent financial aid (compared to schools of my past, at least). Unfortunately, that’s about all it gave me. As a transfer student with plenty of credits, enough to graduate a year early, I thought I would be making great progress and able to focus just on animation, yet that turned out to be far from the truth. This school is hell for transfers. Despite having your normal gen-ed requirements done, they will make you sit through almost a year of freshman courses regardless, few of which will actually progress your chosen area of study. You’ll be stuck in philosophy, theology, and “business” classes, and unable to take anything in your field. And when the time comes for you to do it? There’s a good chance you’ve missed it anyways, because of their once-a-year cycle for many courses, and you’ll have to wait for it to come around again. And if it was a pre-req for more advanced courses? Then you’re extra screwed. And that’s even assuming you have the room to take the courses anyways. They filled up so many of my elective slots (where your particular studies go) with non-relevant transfer credits, that I couldn’t even take the bulk of the program courses. I took more non-relevant classes than I did animation ones. I didn’t know that this would be an issue until I was half-way through, and when I asked for some transfer credits to be dropped to let me take more animation classes, I was told they couldn’t do that. And then I was blamed by the VP of the school for not being “proactive enough,” to prevent so-called professionals from screwing up at their own jobs. So many transfer students face similar issues, and yet the school refuses to do anything to help them. However, it almost doesn’t matter if you can get all the classes for the program you’re in for, because the programs themselves are abysmally sad (except for film, the obvious school favorite). I do not blame the professors for this. It’s obvious, at least for animation, that they are passionate and skilled in their work. But the school has failed to set up a decent program. You will come to find out later on that they don’t even teach basics like concept art, character design, and character turnarounds. Many students find that they have to create their own independent studies just to learn some basic skills. But you can only do that if you meet a GPA threshold. Independent studies should be used for learning special skills outside of the norms, not for having to teach yourself the basics that an animation program should provide! And not all the professors are even teaching current industry standards. Oh, and don’t get too hopeful at having a portfolio ready to show prospective employers at the end of your program. It’s rare enough for there to even be a short animation film project for the senior year. Many seniors wind up just doing work on the film students’ projects instead. Don’t let them fool you with their “Shepherd of Light” game. That has only happened once. I graduated with only some basic animation knowledge and little to show for it. I will have to essentially teach myself from the ground up on my own time now. If you’re thinking of attending the school for another program, I can’t even recommend that you do that. It’s well known throughout the student body that only the film program might be classified as “good.” Even the “business” classes are a joke. Several are taught by the school’s president (NEVER a good idea if you don’t want gross overstepping of power). His pedagogical skills are severely lacking, and he has been known to give zeros to students on a whim, even with work turned in. But since he’s the president, to whom are you going to appeal? (FYI, he also teaches the single science class everyone takes and it is horrific.) Another (now former) professor would spend half his 3 hour lesson times talking about his views on the faith, instead of teaching anything to do with the subjects at hand. Other classes, including cores that everyone has to take, are not well designed, may be frustrating, and some are known to have several students repeatedly fail at them, and yet nothing will ever change to help the STUDENTS, aka, the people paying to attend this university. In addition to floundering in their programs, the school seems to be determined to actively shoot themselves in the foot towards everything. They are miles behind other universities for even basic technology. They completely lack a web portal, something other schools have had for over a decade at this point. Communications (including grades, class schedules, and tuition statements) are done through paper mail and sometimes email. Payments have to be done in person or on the phone. And the system for signing up for classes is frustrating as hell. Essentially, you are filling out an online survey with your information and desired schedule. If you change your mind, you will have to resubmit, and that will put you at the bottom of the list for all your classes. Additionally, the registrar has been known to screw up a student’s classes, have poor communication skills, refuse to fix anything, and then BLAME THE STUDENT FOR IT ALL. It is as unprofessional as you can get. Also, be prepared to wait until the new quarter is a day from starting before you get to find out if you even passed your previous classes. The school is also continuing to use an unreliable website for classes. Many students have had to suffer the site going down before they could submit their homework. You have to get a new link each quarter, and they often don’t bother setting it up until the new quarter is about to start. You would think the school could afford to hire some more IT staff to help set up a reliable system, but instead they are (supposedly) spending all the money on more building renovations and painting the outside bricks brown again. The technology of JPC isn’t the only thing stuck in the past; many of their policies are as well. At times, it’s like living at a Catholic high school 24/7. You have to hope your RA isn’t someone who’s a Karen in training and loves a power trip. Speaking of RAs, the school recently started putting intense lifestyle requirements on them, which they don’t even apply to the rest of the staff. If someone so much as mentions “drugs,” the school takes this as an excuse to execute raids on all the students, going through all their belongings and personal space. People who want to simply hang out with friends of the opposite sex have to either find a spot the school can’t control, or sign a form and get approval every single time they want to visit each other’s homes. There is a dress code, which, as usual, targets the girls more than the boys. And yet despite all this, when actual assault happens and multiple people report the same person, the perpetrator isn’t given any real disciplinary action. They expect people to act like adults, and yet they still treat them like children to lord power over or just ignore their needs. What may well be at the root of many of the problems is the fact that much of the administration is related in some way. Several faculty members are directly or indirectly related to the president himself. As might be imagined, this limits pushback against poor decisions and allows for power trips for the faculty. One of the worst is the VP for Administration, who just so happens to be the university president’s wife. Several students, including myself, have had bad experiences with her being condescending and rude. If you have an issue with something the school has done, she will put the blame on you and try to emotionally gaslight you into thinking it’s entirely your fault for “not being proactive.” So basically, you can’t trust the staff to do their jobs, and it’s your fault when they mess up. Other staff can be rude, mess up, and be nearly late with everything, but it will always be the students’ fault somehow. And there just isn’t really any way for students to push back against this when much of the admin staff is related or close knit. They dictate what they want, and you simply have to take it. The TLDR of this is: DO NOT ATTEND JOHN PAUL THE GREAT CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. There is some good there, yes. It may not be the worst place you could be. But outside of some really great professors and classmates who are all stuck in the same awful system, it just has little to offer. Please, make your college experience worth it by attending a university worth its salt.

I truly do enjoy attending here. As a Catholic, it has helped me take the initiative to grow in my faith, helping me to take responsibility in my spiritual life. Getting out on my own has helped me mentally, and though the heavy workload is a cause for stress, it's nothing that one can't handle, provided that they develop and apply time management skills. As it is a school for the arts (particularly film) and business, one must be ready for those two subjects to be the overall focus in concern to both academics and student life.

Academically, this school is unique. Because of a small class size, interactions and developing professional relationships with professors is easy, and they really care about their students and what they're learning. My emphasis is in game design, and my professor meets with me to help me personally work on my portfolio and coach me on developing a network. The president of the school has personally helped me with issues that I have brought to him. However, student life is less than ideal. The units themselves are nice, but choosing roommates is an ordeal, and more often than not, you get stuck with people you can't get along with. The heads of student life are disrespectful of students and not very helpful. You also cannot move off campus until you are 23 years old. If you're looking for a structured environment and don't mind the housing situation, then this is the school for you. If you're someone who enjoys more freedom, then this may not be the place for you.

It is a great catholic university. I like how you only have to take one year of math and science. There is no sports team and arts are the focus of everything. I like the small class size,and small campus size. The choose to go mass daily is really wonderful.