Is Full Sail University a SCAM? An honest review a decade later.

Full Sail University the University where people learn stuff about art and stuff so you're here for one reason and that is to get the question answered is full sale a scam it's a long-winded answer but if you're literally only here to ask that question I will give you the answer I don't think so okay I'll give you some context I graduated from Full cell in 2011. it has now been over a decade since I graduated from Full Sail and I made a career out of the thing that I learned at full cell so is Full Sail a scam no I learned a lot of things at full sale that eventually got me into the industry I did a lot of work I moved my way up I made a living from the things that I learned at Full Sail but hold on there's more there's always more I'll give you some numbers the first number that is the most painful number is how much money I owed full sell after I went to full sale I owed 72 000 roughly in student loans which I've been lucky enough to pay off through lots of diligent hard work but that did take almost a decade to pay off and the next number that I'm going to tell you makes that number even scarier and that number is that my class started with a roughly 120 something people in the class by the time I graduated there was only I think 19 of us and that's because people either dropped out failed some classes and got held back it wasn't pretty now the next number I'm going to tell you makes that number even scarier because of those 19 people I'm pretty sure that I can count on one hand how many of those people actually are still working in the industry myself included I know what you're thinking it's starting to sound a lot like full sales of scam but there's more to this and this is the kind of Crux of this entire video that I wanted to make has to do a lot with this there is a huge in my opinion this is not this is just my opinion okay guys this is not a fact but in my opinion the biggest caveat of I think what makes people iffy about full sale is the way they Market themselves it's the gateway to your dream it's getting the mixed just right the way full cell and other specialized kind of colleges Market themselves really just tries to appeal to the most wide possible audience they want everyone who's ever had a creative thought in their mind to consider going to full self or whether it be you know film directing audio engineering producing Etc et cetera my point is is that it makes sense that when the barrier to entry is so low you're gonna get a lot of people falling off the Wayside and you're going to get a lot of people complaining about how their dreams didn't come true before you watch anything else in this video I want you to understand that this industry any creative industry is not an easy industry to get into and every single person will tell you that but every person who goes to a place like Full Sail or art institute or any of these places has that thing in their head that says I'm different I'm special I'm gonna do it better and the most common thing that I saw amongst everyone that went to Full Sail myself included is that everyone felt like they were special like they could bypass the system like they could just shortcut it they had the creative genius that nobody else had that they could just learn the basics and that then their genius would take over and you'd be on autopilot and you know find success in the business another big misconception about places like full cell is that by going to full cell you will automatically get connected and networked with the biggest Professionals in the industry you will have those opportunities but it's not easy and I think I was lucky enough to believe the people that told me that it wasn't going to be easy and the truth is that it really does take a long time one of the running jokes uh at Full Sail was that everyone thought they were the next Kanye West this is arguably when Kanye was really blowing up and he was kind of like everywhere this is the Taylor Emma let you finish moment that he had I'm really happy for you I'll let you finish was around that time so he was pretty big and so I think everyone wanted to be Kanye West this guy who just went against the status quo was super creative bent a bunch of rules and seemingly you know came from nothing and because he is a producer and he is a production oriented [Music] I think having somebody like that in the spotlight made everyone feel like if he can do it I can do it and a lot of people started getting into that path of like engineering producing thinking that that would be their way to catapult themselves into the Limelight as a producer and that's the that's the key right there a lot of people went to full sale not to learn a technical skill but instead to try to catapult themselves into the front of the line so to speak and this is where I go back to saying that the thing that full cell does that gives it a bad rep is how it markets itself it's doing what you love every day it seemingly promises you that sort of Limelight exposure it really tries to sell itself as a launching pad for your career and what ends up happening is you start getting a lot of people who maybe aren't ready maybe haven't put in the work maybe don't even know what they really want kind of get starry-eyed and hop right into going to full show so if there's anything you take away from this video it's not that full sales is a scam it's that if you're going to full sale understand that you're going to learn a technical skill it will not put you in front of a producer that's going to hear your Beats or your production or your singing or your coding skills or anything like that it is not a fast lane to the Rockstar life I can tell you that right now and the people who did succeed the people who are still working in the industry were the people who treated it like School a technical school a place where you have access to some really great tools and some really great minds and it's really ultimately up to you to really treat it like something that you need to learn like the back of your hand you need to remove your ego from it entirely and absorb as much information as you can while you're there and then afterwards you can go and be a rock star but that's something that you got to pull off on your own accord full sale is not that I wanted to make this video because for many years after I graduated I um would often get asked when people would find out that I went to full so they're like oh fool sale huh yeah now I would get one of those and I always didn't think that was super Fair because there was some really really great teachers there and the gear that you get to play with there is top of the line now the downside is is that realistically a lot of that really high-end gear you're not ever going to get to touch again once you graduate for at least a decade it feels like you know maybe you'll get a few chances here and there but it took a while to actually be at the point where I was able to you know be in front of that gear again and yeah but that was over a decade ago now so I don't know what the state of Full Sail is but from what I can tell it's still very much uh seems to be offering the same sort of dreams that it used to where every person that walks through the door is an individual has their own ideas and their own dreams and the effort is to meet them where they are and help them along their path so while I don't think it's a scam I think it's important to point out that the marketing doesn't quite reflect what the reality of full sale is it's a technical school that has really great gear and you have to bust your ass to really learn how to use it I think the better question that people should be asking these days is with the Advent of the internet YouTube and just the ability to like even just DM a engineer that was on your favorite album is a thing like full sale or any other Technical College worth it and ultimately that's a question for you to answer for yourself I won't beat around the bush I think that all the things that I learned at Full Sail are freely available online I could now learn all of the things that I learned uh online 100 there's channels like this one and hundreds of others that combined can give you even more information that I think I picked up at full sale but I think it's really important to point out that technical colleges offer two big things that you won't be able to necessarily get from YouTube and that has to do with number one access to facility and gear and professionals that have been in the industry that you can ask a question have a conversation with so that's pretty valuable in itself but more importantly than that I think what something like full sale can offer is pointed knowledge meaning could I find out how a compressor works on the Internet by searching how does a compressor work on YouTube yeah I would definitely learn but most people don't even know that a compressor exists they don't even know that you need compression sometimes when you're mixing a lot of people don't even know the fundamentals of mixing a lot of people don't know what questions to ask and so a place like Full Sail sets you up to kind of learn along the correct path so that you build some really good fundamentals now that isn't to say that you need their curriculum to succeed I think if you are going to go more of the self-teaching route it's possible but you need to be really smart about how you do it and I think the best way to go about it now that I have some context of having been in the industry and having gone to full sale and still learning new things today it's to ask the right questions and the best way to ask the right questions is to just start ask yourself what you want to do your thing is how do I make a song do not search how to make a song because you will watch a two-hour video and you'll be like cool I think I understand it and then you'll try and you'll realize you forgot everything you learned and you'll give up because you'll be overwhelmed the better thing to do is ask yourself I want to make a song cool make a song then ask yourself what do I need to make a song well a song has usually a groove or like drums or something so start there start really really basic and search how to make a drum on GarageBand whatever and you'll learn how to do that and it won't sound very good but actually starting will lead to better questions like once you have a drum Loop you'll start asking how to make my drum Loop sound better and so you slowly start naturally undigging this kind of knowledge as you go instead of just trying to pick it up all at once and and that is the way that you can learn a lot of the things that I learned at a place like Full Sail on your own but you really do need to be very smart about what you search and what you choose to learn and how consistently you learn and so if you know you're not the kind of person that's a little bit of a self-starter or you can you have trouble kind of you know knowing where to go next then maybe a place like full cell or the equivalent is for you because they do a really good job of pointing you in the right direction and you also get exposed to a lot of different things that will help you decide what you like and what you don't like do you like doing live sound do you hate doing live sound do you like mixing do you prefer producing Etc et cetera there's a lot of different things that you'll be exposed to that being said it is extremely expensive it took me almost a decade of working in the industry as a professional to kind of pay off all those loans so it is a lot I do think that you can learn a lot without having to go to a place like full sale but it has its pros it has its cons so I wanted to make this video more than anything just to answer that main question about whether or not full sales and scam I get all the time whenever I tell people that I went to full sale got a lot of interesting looks when I say I went to full sales so I wanted to clear the air on that so that you can make a better decision yourself naturally these are my opinions I'm just a guy that went back in from 2009 to 2011. so I don't know how much it's changed but I suspect that at its core it's still very much similar in terms of how it markets itself and what it can offer so I would love to hear from you in the comments if you've been to full self you've been to something like full cell maybe you have your own thoughts maybe you feel like you did get scammed or maybe you're thinking about going and you have more questions I'd be happy to answer those in the comments so feel free to just comment and if this is your first time watching this Channel and you're interested in learning about sound and audio engineering and all that kind of stuff and music production and whatever subscribe because because if you don't feel like taking out a huge massive student loan you have resources like this channel to learn so subscribe it's free costs nothing all right well that's it for now thanks for watching if you have any questions again leave them down below see ya

Channel: soundlearn

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Keywords: full sail university, college life, full sail university review, full sail, why you should not go to full sail, full sail university scams, should i go to full sail, full sail university worth it, winter park, full sail university alumni, full sail university online, full sail university music production, art institute, sae, berklee, full sail student, full sail music production, full sail university tour, why you should not go to full sail university, is full sail worth it

Id: 320qcEtX140

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023