Art Foundation year abroad: any experience

[Palexpo]

My child is hoping to combine the fun of a gap year adventure with getting an Art Foundation before starting her degree. Has anyone else did it? If so how where and was it a good experience both academically and socially? Also how did you find out whether the Art Foundation would be considered as equivalent to a UK Art Foundation by universities?

Not abroad, sorry, but my child did an art foundation in lieu of a gap year (went on to study a related humanities degree but not practical art). One thing I would say is that if your child is thinking of pursuing art at a higher level in the UK, the tutors on my dc’s course offered a wealth of knowledge and experience and helped many of the foundation students gain places at the top UK universities/art schools for their specialism and to find some particularly niche courses for some. This is something you’d probably lose if you did it outside the UK.

Also, it is a full-time commitment and hard work (9-5 every weekday) so didn’t really allow a lot of time for fun around it although my child loved it and met a great bunch on the course. They only managed to do a bit of part-time work in the evenings but I’d say the course is fairly all-consuming.

They were finished by the end of May so my child used that long summer to do a bit of more traditional gap year travelling/volunteering/earning money for uni.

Overall, it worked brilliantly for my child who was definitely not ready to leave home straight after A levels.

Thank you. At this stage she intends to apply for a history degree and defer while doing the Goundarion. If she loves the Foundation she could obviously change her mind but at the moment that’s the plan.

The one place she has found is an Atelier in Florence that is rebound for being very intense. She knows it’s 9-5 but she loves the idea of evenings then being in Florence and hanging out with students from around the world. My worry is they won’t all be 18 like she imagines because I expect this Atelier attracts lots of middle aged people wanting to do something different.

Could you find a short break to actually visit the Atelier in term time to let her see for herself the kind of students it attracts?

@Blossomdearie that was DD1's experience of art foundation in the UK too. A really worthwhile year with the bonus of no course fees.

If you mean the FAA, dd and I have visited this very recently. She’s still weighing up what she wants to do after school but is thinking of maybe some time in Florence. Their foundation is almost the opposite of a UK foundation though. A UK course will expose you to lots of different art making whereas the FAA is already very focused. Feel free to PM me.

Who funds the living it up in Florence?

Im not sure about the OP’s dd, but for us, dd will need to fund that herself. She’s doing a lot of work to this end, taking commissions, speaking at the rotary club, applying for grants etc. If she manages to pull it together, she’ll be taking part in an extremely intensive programme and on her feet most days often until about 7pm. This may well be her idea of living it up, but I’m not sure it’s everyone’s.

Do foreign universities have foundation courses?

Are they not a British thing?

Yes, more of a British thing and I’d say mostly English. There haven’t historically been any standalone ones in Scotland until very recently- now there’s one.

I think some places do it for foreign students like the Florence Academy of Art mentioned above and another place I have found in Florence.

@FriendlyLaundryMonster i will PM you as I would love to hear your impressions of FAA.

I would check what they teach.

The idea of a foundation course is to cover all areas of art and design.

Painting
Installation art
Printing
Textiles
Sculpture
Fashion
3D
Graphics
Photography
Performance Art
Film
History of Art and Design
Product Design
Animation.

Don’t go somewhere where they just teach fine art.

Can I ask why? her interest is fine art and portraiture in particular so that is part of the attraction.

Because the point of a foundation is to give a wide grounding in all areas of art.

If she isn’t interested in following it up at university then portraiture and painting would be ok.