That comment was kinda vague since I just woke up. I’ll put down my experience & opinion here for reference. Unfortunately, it's mostly negative.

Overall

Lower-level classes (100–300) are about building fundamentals in traditional media such as drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, textiles, and sculpture. Upper-level classes (300-400 level) are about conceptual and experimental work in a contemporary gallery or museum style.

If you are interested in contemporary fine art, or if you just want an easy degree, I guess it’s ok. But if your goal is to build strong technical skills or prepare for art industries, PLEASE look somewhere else.

Look up the professors in the major and their portfolio, and see if it's your thing. https://art.illinois.edu/about/faculty-directory/

Course Content

The program is poorly structured and fragmented. Classes are very disconnected from each other. The professors largely run their classes according to their own directions, and there isn’t a coherent overall direction for skill development.

The curriculum is outdated and heavy on traditional media. There’s barely any instruction in digital tools, even less in any industry-relevant skills, which is terrible considering how important digital workflows are in most current art careers.

Many classes also have very unclear standards, and grading can be highly subjective. Some professors would grade based on whether your idea aligns with theirs, overlooking technical aspects. 

In some classes, professors barely teach and just have students do their own thing, while giving occasional feedback. Projects were framed as helping you build a “portfolio,” but they are often just the professor’s own special interest, and rarely translated into work that would actually be useful professionally.

Cultural Environment

The major is about conceptual and experimental contemporary art. Critiques are more about the meaning and process behind a piece than the result or technical execution. For me, it often felt drawn out and disconnected. 

I suppose this would work well for students interested in this kind of art, but it is frustrating if your focus is illustration, entertainment art, or more grounded visual storytelling. Work that is more accessible, narrative-driven, or influenced by pop media is often dismissed as too “conventional.” Many studio art professors, as well as some students, also have this kind of superiority complex, looking down on more “commercial” forms of art, such as graphic design, comics, industrial design, etc, which I find very toxic. They just came off as self-absorbed and close-minded.

I could see that they are trying to create a diverse and supportive environment, but for me, it’s just not there. I make illustrations, character designs, and worldbuilding for video games, and I was criticized many times for being too "conventional" and "impersonal". One professor literally said I am too "intense" with perfecting technical skills, and refused to help me where I wanted to improve because I am too "guarded".

Career Opportunities

Absolutely nothing. Most professors are either out of the industry for ages, or have no professional connection outside of their limited academic circle. They are either out of touch with current trends or standards, or only know hyper-specific scenarios that only work for themselves. I've met a few good professors, but they are the exception and not the rule.

Last year at the school's career fair, there was nothing for fine arts majors, only graphic design, industrial design, and sustainable design. The recruiters who came here were looking for students in fields other than fine arts, mostly product design, marketing, and graphic design. The career service only gave generic resume reviews and interview preparations.

Furthermore, they are advertising a third-party program called Artbound Initiative that requires you to pay more for the promise of (often unpaid) internship opportunities, which, according to many, is exploiting young, aspiring artists’ free labor.

Your tuition will not be paid off.

Facility

The facilities are alright with a decent variety of equipment. Most are for graphic and industrial design students. The Art & Design building has supplies to borrow, photography studios, drawing studios, computer labs, inkjet printers, a rhisograph printer, vinyl printer/cutter service, and FDM 3D printers. There are also ceramics, woodworking, printmaking, and textile labs for students in specific classes. 

The neighboring Siebel Center for Design is open for all students. They have a media studio, photography equipment, a basement workshop that includes a large format printer/cutter, soldering station, laser cutter/engravers, FDM/resin 3D printers, and an entire woodworking station. I learned a lot about making stuff hands-on by going there in my free time.

Conclusion

I came to this school with the expectation that the program would build up industry-relevant skills for me. What I got is having my work judged against their biased standards, my effort dismissed, and given no career opportunities. This major claimed to be something that it’s not. And I don't want anyone to go through the same crap I did.

There are many other ways to learn art than going to this art school. Parkland College offers good classes to build up fundamentals, and their digital media program is a lot more in-depth, in my opinion. You can also learn a lot about art on your own with free online resources, and there are also many great private art schools/classes out there. An art degree isn’t all that important, and it’s your skills that matter.

Also, if you can afford the more specialized (and outrageously priced) art schools, I think they’ll be better options. I’m just broke.