ARTT255 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting a B+ chadvader29 05/11/2025	I am fairly stunned with how high the reviews are here. I myself and pretty much every other student I talk to has disliked this professor. I will preface the rest of this review by explaining why I went with 2 stars rather than 1, and that is his re-submission policy. Essentially, as long as you turn something in on time, then you can resubmit any assignment at any point before finals, even the very first project. This policy is very forgiving and genuinely extremely nice. However, that is where the positivity stops. His teaching style is simply not acceptable for the coursework of ARTT255, which is the Adobe Suite. The only reason I stood a chance in this class was because I already knew how to use many of these products. These products (photoshop, illustrator, inDesign, premiere, and dreamweaver) are pretty complicated with tons and tons of tools. Rather than doing small activities to learn the most helpful tools in any given program, this professor shares his screen to every computer in the lab (locking your monitor, unless you are using a personal laptop). He then proceeds to explain many, many tools at once and essentially just talks at you for 2 hours. It becomes pretty hard to follow. He also goes on very weird and random tangents and does a pretty poor job of answering student's questions. The Photoshop project seriously needs to be reformatted, because having little to no direction is for one, oddly inconsistent with other assignments in the class, and not particularly helpful for Photoshop beginners to learn helpful practices. His grading is pretty arbitrary and very strict. He emphasizes A LOT on critiques, but his feedback is often random and unhelpful. It feels like if it does not look the exact way he was imagining it, then he does not like it. And he expects you to change your entire composition to his feedback. This professor needs to lighten up on his way of doing things. Certain things make sense to hold firm on, but he holds on to very, very specific ways of doing things (that aren't even necessarily the best way to do so) and punishes students for not adhering to this exact formatting. Any student that tries to branch out from this for a more personal or interesting piece is argued with; and his argument/reasoning is usually not particularly compelling anyway. Tangent: For example, in the final project, which is making a website, he very clearly wants you to follow his way of design. This is using thumbnail images that can be expanded on another page or in one central location on a page, rather than just placing the images in a column and scrolling through them (like most websites). He complains during every critique to students that are using a normal design with scrolling, saying that it doesn't allow him to focus on each individual piece as well. However, each image takes up almost the entire screen at once, so you're really only looking at one image at a time. His reasoning makes little to no sense. There are more examples of this throughout the class, but this is the one I found most annoying. Finally, I have a bit of a personal vendetta against this professor for his lack of empathy and understanding. I just did 4 rounds of chemotherapy, two of which were during the semester, I ended up missing about 6 weeks of class. Because of this, I completed 2 of the 5 projects extremely, extremely quickly, completely outside of class with no direction, critique, or feedback at all. He still gave me fairly poor grades on these assignments, even though he very much emphasizes critique, and I had no opportunity to get feedback or see my peer's work due to absence (medically excused, of course). When I confronted him and just reminded him that I made these with no direction or feedback, he implied that he in fact did take that into consideration and my work deserved an even worse grade. I am not saying I created masterpieces or anything, but my work was NOT THAT BAD. He acted like he was being nice and lenient by offering me his resubmit policy... but he gives the same thing to everyone, so I am not sure how that was helping me in particular. Resubmitting was difficult for me; after already putting in as much effort as I did in a short period of time, it was hard to put in even more time on a single assignment while I still had other make up work in that class, let alone my other classes. (I do not recommend missing 6 weeks of class) What really bothers me is that this professor told me about his own personal experience with cancer, which made me think that he would be very lenient and understanding (which has happened to me with another professor), but this was by far not the case. Overall, this professor is a strict grader, gives poor feedback, expects things to be done exactly his way, teaches poorly, and, which I forgot to mention, does not allow a lot of time in some cases. (About 2 weeks for a 3 minute animation assignment; I am one of the few that had it done on time and it was HARD WORK). He is slightly redeemed by his resubmission policy. It seems in some semesters, this professor is your only option for ARTT255, so if this is a required course, strap in and prepare yourself for the bumpy ride ahead.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/23/2024	Generally, I think this course teaches valuable skills (Adobe Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere). I was able to create some pretty cool stuff. However, I think this course was more oriented to YOU making what you can of it. The projects didn't really create a deep familiarity with the Adobe application, because there wasn't really time for the students to go over familiarizing themselves with the Adobe capabilities. So, based on what you did for a project, that was the extent of your familiarity with the application used. He does go over a lot of tips and tricks but in a studio course, it is very easy to forget certain things, which is why I think the course could benefit from maybe recording lectures so students can look back at how to do things. His critiques also usually just offer the students possible other ways they can approach their piece instead of how to hone in their work, so it is sometimes helpful and sometimes not. The course consisted of a Photoshop assignment (3 photoshopped images), an Illustrator poster, an InDesign artist catalogue, a 3 min Premiere animation, and a final artists website. Overall these projects were manageable, but I found that we had very little time for the animation in comparison with the other projects. Ultimately, this course was fine, but definitely boring at times but it was overall ok.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/27/2024	If you've never worked with any of the Adobe Suite before, you will struggle a bit. Hes obviously knowledgeable but his voice puts you to sleep. His critiques sometimes don't make sense and feel opinionated but for the most part, they will make you a better artist. Super chill, lets you redo any assignment turned in at the end of the semester.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2024	This class is so boring, almost every class is just a straight lecture, and he doesn't record so to learn the different softwares, you either have to teach yourself, take notes, or get others' notes. If you don't show up, there is an obvious amount of passive aggression, and he plays favorites. He is a chill grader and allows you to revise any project as long as you submit what you have by the deadline. However, the end of the semester is a very heavy workload, where you have to make a 3-minute animation in premiere and a website using Dreamweaver. I would recommend getting a head start on both of these projects, but it's hard to get excited for a class that's taught in a very boring way.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2024	Class is very chill. Naren is a very nice guy with a sense of humor which occasionally makes a fun appearance. He gives great feedback during in class presentations, and if you have a good class, other students will too. Sometimes class can be boring when he's simply giving slow tutorials in adobe software, and it's a little strange that he struggles to do stuff like navigate windows/tabs but overall it's a good time. Usually class never lasted the full studio time for us either. He's also really lenient when it comes to deadlines, just asking us to turn in something on time and then revise it later. Definitely don't wait until the end to revise everything though, since you're still working on new projects, but it means you can go back and make something you're proud of. He'll even update your grade and tell you what you could fix. As long as you try your best and put time into your work, you'll get a good grade and enjoy this class too. You'll learn some nice skills taking this class and hopefully also make some pieces you're proud of.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/06/2024	Nare is without a doubt the worst instructor I have had at any institution, ever. I am shocked by how high the reviews are here, if you look on RMP (https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/268171) he has not had a positive review in over 7 years. He shows up to every lecture 5-10 minutes late, and is completely unprepared. He then spends 5 to, on several occasions, up to 40 minutes "getting set up". I like to imagine he gets distracted by the daily crossword, and is unable to begin class until he finishes. During this time we are given no instruction, and the class is completely silent, afraid to talk to one another, fearful that Nare will reprimand them. The funniest part of this to me is that he often lectures the class on the necessity of time management. He finally begins lecture, usually 20-30 minutes after the class has begun. His lectures are beyond boring and I found them to be of little use. His lack of enthusiasm or of any emotion at all actually, sucks the life out of the classroom. It is a genuinely painful experience. Anything taught in lecture can be found in a quick google search. At the beginning of class he often asks what was covered previously, and a lot of the time the class cannot even remember because he taught the content so poorly. I can say that I was completely self-taught from Youtube videos for every assignment. The lectures usually last an hour to an hour and a half, but never the full class time. During this time he locks our screens (in the computer lab) so that we are unable to follow along, and are forced to just watch him. He then holds us hostage another 10-15 minutes in silence before he hands out the (graded) attendance sheet. The critiques are horrendous. Few people willingly volunteer as Nare routinely will harp on the presenting person while rarely offering any suggestions of substance. A typical response to a student showing their work is along the lines of "Okay. (long pause) So you've got a lot of work to do. You really need to start working on (the next step of the project, even when the person is completely caught up or even ahead). It's fine but you've got a long way to go." all in a demeaning tone. Even when you raise your hand to give another person feedback, there is no dialogue. Nare will simply grunt or mumble something unintelligible to acknowledge your contribution to the "discussion" and then the class returns to silence. While he expects everyone to contribute, he makes most people who do feel like shit. He doesn't have favorites, whether or not he berates you is seemingly random. Do not expect Nare to respond to any emails sent his way. He either does not check his email or chooses not to acknowledge any of them, even when told he received an email during class. He tries to gaslight you into thinking you sent it to the wrong email, didn't use ELMS, had a bad Subject head, etc. even when following his exact instructions for contacting him on ELMS. He also typically takes about a month to grade each assignment. All that waiting culminates into two sentences of vague, generic feedback. His self-inflicted two sentence limit makes it so that he is often unable to fit in why certain points were docked. I found most of the projects to be pretty uninspiring and without much room for creative expression given the timeframe. Although, I'm sure this is similar if not exactly the same as the other sections, and this is just my opinion. If you ask for help on a project during class he will help, albeit begrudgingly and is passive-aggressive if you ask him to repeat anything from lecture. Bottom line: if you want to enjoy your next art course, do not take Nare.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/31/2022	Class spent mostly going through tutorials (very slowly) of Adobe software basics. It feels very boring at times, but I did enjoy some of the content. However, he is not very clear with expectations at times and never responds to emails (quite literally never but will blame you for not using terpmail or ELMS even if that's not the case). Also quite passive aggressive, but the class is a necessary course for many upper level reqs. Main point: could be better could be worse.
Shannon Collis ARTT255 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2021	This class was interesting and I learned a lot. But all of the demos for the class came from LinkedIn Learning. It was basically a self taught class, since it was asynchronous. She answered emails quick and gave good feedback. And she offered to look over my rough draft and give me feedback before the due date, which was nice.
Shannon Collis ARTT255 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/26/2020	Great prof. Really helpful and friendly.
Narendra Ratnapala ARTT255 Expecting a B+ wombat 12/08/2012	He is very, I mean VERY chill. Knowledgeable about all the software we cover and always has good suggestions during the critiques. His voice put me to sleep at times, but other than that he is a good professor and a nice guy.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting a B+
chadvader29
05/11/2025

I am fairly stunned with how high the reviews are here. I myself and pretty much every other student I talk to has disliked this professor. I will preface the rest of this review by explaining why I went with 2 stars rather than 1, and that is his re-submission policy. Essentially, as long as you turn something in on time, then you can resubmit any assignment at any point before finals, even the very first project. This policy is very forgiving and genuinely extremely nice. However, that is where the positivity stops. His teaching style is simply not acceptable for the coursework of ARTT255, which is the Adobe Suite. The only reason I stood a chance in this class was because I already knew how to use many of these products. These products (photoshop, illustrator, inDesign, premiere, and dreamweaver) are pretty complicated with tons and tons of tools. Rather than doing small activities to learn the most helpful tools in any given program, this professor shares his screen to every computer in the lab (locking your monitor, unless you are using a personal laptop). He then proceeds to explain many, many tools at once and essentially just talks at you for 2 hours. It becomes pretty hard to follow. He also goes on very weird and random tangents and does a pretty poor job of answering student's questions. The Photoshop project seriously needs to be reformatted, because having little to no direction is for one, oddly inconsistent with other assignments in the class, and not particularly helpful for Photoshop beginners to learn helpful practices. His grading is pretty arbitrary and very strict. He emphasizes A LOT on critiques, but his feedback is often random and unhelpful. It feels like if it does not look the exact way he was imagining it, then he does not like it. And he expects you to change your entire composition to his feedback. This professor needs to lighten up on his way of doing things. Certain things make sense to hold firm on, but he holds on to very, very specific ways of doing things (that aren't even necessarily the best way to do so) and punishes students for not adhering to this exact formatting. Any student that tries to branch out from this for a more personal or interesting piece is argued with; and his argument/reasoning is usually not particularly compelling anyway. Tangent: For example, in the final project, which is making a website, he very clearly wants you to follow his way of design. This is using thumbnail images that can be expanded on another page or in one central location on a page, rather than just placing the images in a column and scrolling through them (like most websites). He complains during every critique to students that are using a normal design with scrolling, saying that it doesn't allow him to focus on each individual piece as well. However, each image takes up almost the entire screen at once, so you're really only looking at one image at a time. His reasoning makes little to no sense. There are more examples of this throughout the class, but this is the one I found most annoying. Finally, I have a bit of a personal vendetta against this professor for his lack of empathy and understanding. I just did 4 rounds of chemotherapy, two of which were during the semester, I ended up missing about 6 weeks of class. Because of this, I completed 2 of the 5 projects extremely, extremely quickly, completely outside of class with no direction, critique, or feedback at all. He still gave me fairly poor grades on these assignments, even though he very much emphasizes critique, and I had no opportunity to get feedback or see my peer's work due to absence (medically excused, of course). When I confronted him and just reminded him that I made these with no direction or feedback, he implied that he in fact did take that into consideration and my work deserved an even worse grade. I am not saying I created masterpieces or anything, but my work was NOT THAT BAD. He acted like he was being nice and lenient by offering me his resubmit policy... but he gives the same thing to everyone, so I am not sure how that was helping me in particular. Resubmitting was difficult for me; after already putting in as much effort as I did in a short period of time, it was hard to put in even more time on a single assignment while I still had other make up work in that class, let alone my other classes. (I do not recommend missing 6 weeks of class) What really bothers me is that this professor told me about his own personal experience with cancer, which made me think that he would be very lenient and understanding (which has happened to me with another professor), but this was by far not the case. Overall, this professor is a strict grader, gives poor feedback, expects things to be done exactly his way, teaches poorly, and, which I forgot to mention, does not allow a lot of time in some cases. (About 2 weeks for a 3 minute animation assignment; I am one of the few that had it done on time and it was HARD WORK). He is slightly redeemed by his resubmission policy. It seems in some semesters, this professor is your only option for ARTT255, so if this is a required course, strap in and prepare yourself for the bumpy ride ahead.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
11/23/2024

Generally, I think this course teaches valuable skills (Adobe Suite, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere). I was able to create some pretty cool stuff. However, I think this course was more oriented to YOU making what you can of it. The projects didn't really create a deep familiarity with the Adobe application, because there wasn't really time for the students to go over familiarizing themselves with the Adobe capabilities. So, based on what you did for a project, that was the extent of your familiarity with the application used. He does go over a lot of tips and tricks but in a studio course, it is very easy to forget certain things, which is why I think the course could benefit from maybe recording lectures so students can look back at how to do things. His critiques also usually just offer the students possible other ways they can approach their piece instead of how to hone in their work, so it is sometimes helpful and sometimes not. The course consisted of a Photoshop assignment (3 photoshopped images), an Illustrator poster, an InDesign artist catalogue, a 3 min Premiere animation, and a final artists website. Overall these projects were manageable, but I found that we had very little time for the animation in comparison with the other projects. Ultimately, this course was fine, but definitely boring at times but it was overall ok.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/27/2024

If you've never worked with any of the Adobe Suite before, you will struggle a bit. Hes obviously knowledgeable but his voice puts you to sleep. His critiques sometimes don't make sense and feel opinionated but for the most part, they will make you a better artist. Super chill, lets you redo any assignment turned in at the end of the semester.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/14/2024

This class is so boring, almost every class is just a straight lecture, and he doesn't record so to learn the different softwares, you either have to teach yourself, take notes, or get others' notes. If you don't show up, there is an obvious amount of passive aggression, and he plays favorites. He is a chill grader and allows you to revise any project as long as you submit what you have by the deadline. However, the end of the semester is a very heavy workload, where you have to make a 3-minute animation in premiere and a website using Dreamweaver. I would recommend getting a head start on both of these projects, but it's hard to get excited for a class that's taught in a very boring way.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/11/2024

Class is very chill. Naren is a very nice guy with a sense of humor which occasionally makes a fun appearance. He gives great feedback during in class presentations, and if you have a good class, other students will too. Sometimes class can be boring when he's simply giving slow tutorials in adobe software, and it's a little strange that he struggles to do stuff like navigate windows/tabs but overall it's a good time. Usually class never lasted the full studio time for us either. He's also really lenient when it comes to deadlines, just asking us to turn in something on time and then revise it later. Definitely don't wait until the end to revise everything though, since you're still working on new projects, but it means you can go back and make something you're proud of. He'll even update your grade and tell you what you could fix. As long as you try your best and put time into your work, you'll get a good grade and enjoy this class too. You'll learn some nice skills taking this class and hopefully also make some pieces you're proud of.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/06/2024

Nare is without a doubt the worst instructor I have had at any institution, ever. I am shocked by how high the reviews are here, if you look on RMP (https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/268171) he has not had a positive review in over 7 years. He shows up to every lecture 5-10 minutes late, and is completely unprepared. He then spends 5 to, on several occasions, up to 40 minutes "getting set up". I like to imagine he gets distracted by the daily crossword, and is unable to begin class until he finishes. During this time we are given no instruction, and the class is completely silent, afraid to talk to one another, fearful that Nare will reprimand them. The funniest part of this to me is that he often lectures the class on the necessity of time management. He finally begins lecture, usually 20-30 minutes after the class has begun. His lectures are beyond boring and I found them to be of little use. His lack of enthusiasm or of any emotion at all actually, sucks the life out of the classroom. It is a genuinely painful experience. Anything taught in lecture can be found in a quick google search. At the beginning of class he often asks what was covered previously, and a lot of the time the class cannot even remember because he taught the content so poorly. I can say that I was completely self-taught from Youtube videos for every assignment. The lectures usually last an hour to an hour and a half, but never the full class time. During this time he locks our screens (in the computer lab) so that we are unable to follow along, and are forced to just watch him. He then holds us hostage another 10-15 minutes in silence before he hands out the (graded) attendance sheet. The critiques are horrendous. Few people willingly volunteer as Nare routinely will harp on the presenting person while rarely offering any suggestions of substance. A typical response to a student showing their work is along the lines of "Okay. (long pause) So you've got a lot of work to do. You really need to start working on (the next step of the project, even when the person is completely caught up or even ahead). It's fine but you've got a long way to go." all in a demeaning tone. Even when you raise your hand to give another person feedback, there is no dialogue. Nare will simply grunt or mumble something unintelligible to acknowledge your contribution to the "discussion" and then the class returns to silence. While he expects everyone to contribute, he makes most people who do feel like shit. He doesn't have favorites, whether or not he berates you is seemingly random. Do not expect Nare to respond to any emails sent his way. He either does not check his email or chooses not to acknowledge any of them, even when told he received an email during class. He tries to gaslight you into thinking you sent it to the wrong email, didn't use ELMS, had a bad Subject head, etc. even when following his exact instructions for contacting him on ELMS. He also typically takes about a month to grade each assignment. All that waiting culminates into two sentences of vague, generic feedback. His self-inflicted two sentence limit makes it so that he is often unable to fit in why certain points were docked. I found most of the projects to be pretty uninspiring and without much room for creative expression given the timeframe. Although, I'm sure this is similar if not exactly the same as the other sections, and this is just my opinion. If you ask for help on a project during class he will help, albeit begrudgingly and is passive-aggressive if you ask him to repeat anything from lecture. Bottom line: if you want to enjoy your next art course, do not take Nare.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/31/2022

Class spent mostly going through tutorials (very slowly) of Adobe software basics. It feels very boring at times, but I did enjoy some of the content. However, he is not very clear with expectations at times and never responds to emails (quite literally never but will blame you for not using terpmail or ELMS even if that's not the case). Also quite passive aggressive, but the class is a necessary course for many upper level reqs. Main point: could be better could be worse.

Shannon Collis
ARTT255

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/19/2021

This class was interesting and I learned a lot. But all of the demos for the class came from LinkedIn Learning. It was basically a self taught class, since it was asynchronous. She answered emails quick and gave good feedback. And she offered to look over my rough draft and give me feedback before the due date, which was nice.

Shannon Collis
ARTT255

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/26/2020

Great prof. Really helpful and friendly.

Narendra Ratnapala
ARTT255

Expecting a B+
wombat
12/08/2012

He is very, I mean VERY chill. Knowledgeable about all the software we cover and always has good suggestions during the critiques. His voice put me to sleep at times, but other than that he is a good professor and a nice guy.

Reviews for ARTT255