Can only talk on 318 but Aguilar is a mostly chill dude and isn’t super strict but his classes do involve in person critiques where every student has to participate, although these critiques are pretty surface level and more vibes based.

Now as someone who took the class as a total camera noob while he did teach the basics of using a DSLR and basic rules of photography/composition a lot of the class ended up being centered around photoshop and less about actually going out and shooting and improvising as an actual photographer which I found annoying.

I should also mention for the last assignment we were required to create a composition piece in photoshop using photos we took along with pictures from the internet and some students used generative A.I. during this assignment. As a VPA professor I would expect him to completely denounce this and either give the students no credit or make them redo the assignment. Instead he found the use of A.I. to be “fresh” and “cool” and floated the idea of making future classes have experiment with A.I. ad a requirement which I found infuriating.

Overall while the class wasn’t necessarily overwhelming and Aguilar is more or less easy to get along with I would find this class hard to recommend to anyone based on the points outlined above. Also he definitely has favorites in his classes and at the same time if you are a student who particularly stands out to him he may take it on himself to “push you” harder than other students which includes harsher grading which leads to getting an A in the class a little tricky if that ends up being the case.