For Art Student, Storyboarding and Burning Out

By Brandi Davis

Makeda Moore is still working toward her BFA at William Paterson, but she is already a struggling artist.

An animation major, Moore waits for late Valley Road shuttles, pays for Ubers when the shuttles never show, and sits through lengthy studio classes that drag on until 10:30 p.m.

She’s only 21, but she is burning out.

“Being an art student is difficult in a way that’s unique to other majors,” Moore said. “With a creative major, you have to oftentimes take a lot more time to work on projects or assignments because they require a level of creativity and skill that can’t be rushed. So, I think it’s very difficult to keep up with the course load, especially when juggling multiple studio classes. And there’s also the instances of burnout where you don’t feel like being creative, but you still have to do homework that requires drawing, painting or animating.”

Moore is taking four studio classes this fall in Power Arts. Her Intro to Animation course meets for two hours every week, while her remaining three classes — Storyboarding & Production Design, Photography Studio Lighting and Advanced Dynamic Figure Drawing — are each five hours long. At a university where most major classes meet in 75-minute installments, her schedule is intense.

The poor transportation on campus makes it worse.

“Despite the school having a shuttle system in place, it’s not very good,” Moore said. “It makes it very difficult to travel to Power Arts without a car. And I have been late to my studio classes at least eight to 10 times this semester. The shuttle usually has a certain schedule that I try to follow, but even when adhering to the schedule, the shuttle doesn’t. I often get to class 10 or even 30 minutes late.”

Still, Moore said she still recommends that dedicated students study art.

“It’s very important to be confident in what field you want to go into and really understand if you want art to be a hobby or if you want it to be a career,” she said. “I feel like William Paterson has amazing art professors that are very knowledgeable, very skilled, very passionate.”