YFU Estonia’s art program is
one of the many special programs open to exchange students who are interested
in coming here. We asked Pia-Joy to tell us about her experiences so far at an
Estonian art school in Tartu:
„Right now I am in Estonia at
one of the art schools. I opted for the art program because I really wanted to
do more with art than was possible for me in Germany. And from day one I
absolutely loved it! Even though I understood absolutely nothing at the beginning...
The first day was unbelievably thrilling and just completely different! After
the first greeting ceremony we went with our teacher to a big room where they
told us all of the organizational things, and after that we went to the library
and everyone from the different courses got to know one another. It probably
seems complicated that we were with our class first then in our courses- there
is one class per grade then the different profile courses.
But to the point:
The lessons are also
completely different! We don’t all have normal subjects, only those that we
need for our profiles and then the art courses. For example, in the first half
of the year aside from Math, English, Geometry (yep! This was its own course) Estonian,
and sometimes Physics, I had the art classes Painting, Drawing, Composition,
and Computers & Graphics. During the second half of the year Sculpturing,
Portfolio, Photography, and Photo Editing were added to my schedule. My
absolute favorite subject is drawing because every class I can see myself
improving; it’s so much fun to draw very detailed still-lifes and people and
its just amazing to see the improvements over the past few months. Up until now
we’ve drawn with coal and pencil, so it’s a very diverse. But the other art
subjects are also great! In painting its more unrealistic and colorful- a dull
week turns into a colorful week- and on the computer we take things like a
normal booth and turn it into an ad for pineapple.
Even the general atmosphere of the school is different. The school is really small, about 150 students, and a very friendly relationship exists between the teachers and the students. It isn’t such an anonymous and distant environment.All in all I’ve felt at home
here since the very first day and I don’t want to go back to a normal German
school. I think if I could, I would stay here and finish school.”