There has been a conspiracy to prevent me from ever taking an art class at Stanford; I’m sure of it. For the most part, it’s not that hard to get into classes you want here, a fact I’m blessedly reminded of every time I see friends from home. The one exception I’ve found to this is our Studio Art Department. This is one of my eternal frustrations at this school: I love art, but it seems that the Department of Art & Art History wants nothing to do with me.

In high school, the art room was my second home. When I got to Stanford, I seriously considered being a studio art major or minor. I was forced to drop that idea because I could not manage to get my foot in the door to take even one art class. It’s actually quite impressive; I believe I have been turned away from art classes for every possible reason.

At the start of freshman year, I signed up for Painting I and Drawing I. I was in on Axess, so I shopped another class during Drawing I, only to find out later that you have to show up to the first class to get in. Lesson learned. Then I went to Painting I; it was honestly a little frightening. Thirty-five kids were crowded into a paint-covered studio, and when the professor announced he could only take 12, everyone instantly became unspoken enemies. Sideways glances flew around the room as everyone tried to assess if they were more deserving than the rest. This teacher gave priority to seniors, then juniors, then sophomores. As a freshman, I was given an automatic goodbye.

Sophomore year, I was pumped that I would have a better chance. The third time’s the charm, right? I walked into Drawing I and was met with the most ironic of all announcements: this class was taught by a different teacher who wanted to make sure freshmen got opportunities to try out the Art Department. He gave priority to freshmen and seniors — with sophomores at the bottom of the list. I was out. So I picked up my backpack, left and put aside my hopes for majoring in art. Although disillusioned, I was still determined to try again.

However, in my one quarter on campus junior year, I decided not to waste Axess space on a class I might not get into anyway. I walked into the classroom for Painting I. This teacher began by reading off the list of those signed up on Axess and asked everyone else to leave immediately.

After that, I just gave up. Three years, four attempts and I could not get into a single class. However sad or pitiful this story may be, I do have a point. From my experience and from the estimated 90 other kids who were also turned away from the four classes I tried to get into, it’s clear that when it comes to art instruction at Stanford, the demand is far outpacing the supply. However, there is good news on the horizon: the Stanford Arts Initiative. The Studio Art and Art Departments are gaining a new building that will include studios and classrooms, and construction is slated to begin next year. I hope that in the future, there will never be another student like me at Stanford that feels shut out from a department that he or she desperately wants to participate in.

So my message to the heads of the Institute for Creativity in the Arts, professors John Berger and Bryan Wolf, is this: please — for me and for the hundreds of other kids that have also been turned away from art classes — make sure to allocate enough money to the needs of the students and not just to raise the esteem of Stanford in the eyes of the art world. Give your students the space and the instructors they need — allow us to indulge our creativity. Give us studios, rehearsal rooms, performance spaces for student groups; give us places with floors that you can dance on and mirrors on the walls; give us theaters with wings and lights. Because if all a student is doing is desperately trying to take classes, no one should feel like an entire department hates them again.

The Art Department might hate Jamie, but you don’t, right? Let her know by sending her an email at [email protected].