Badly need career help/guidance.

Stumpy713 · September 2009

I am a recent High School graduate and i need some advice. I plan to have a career in gaming as an artist/animator but I want a good job with a good company. I have a kid and i dread people who have kids at a young age and turn out to have minimum wage jobs forever and an underclass life. I do not want to be one of those people.

I am looking to enroll into a college. I am aware that Devry, ITT, and UOP aren't really recommended schools to go to. Is the LA film school and the art institute of California like Devry and those other schools? Or should i just focus on going to a normal city college and transferring to a university?

What should i do to make sure i don't waste anytime and get on the right track to insure i can get a good paying job to support me and my family in the later years?

Thank you.

msteinhilber · September 2009

Stumpy713 wrote: »

I am a recent High School graduate and i need some advice. I plan to have a career in gaming as an artist/animator but I want a good job with a good company. I have a kid and i dread people who have kids at a young age and turn out to have minimum wage jobs forever and an underclass life. I do not want to be one of those people.

I am looking to enroll into a college. I am aware that Devry, ITT, and UOP aren't really recommended schools to go to. Is the LA film school and the art institute of California like Devry and those other schools? Or should i just focus on going to a normal city college and transferring to a university?

What should i do to make sure i don't waste anytime and get on the right track to insure i can get a good paying job to support me and my family in the later years?

Thank you.

First, welcome to the forums!

Second, I think it's great that you have the desire to commit yourself to the difficult challenges one faces with supporting a family and attending college - especially at a younger age. It's great that you have a strong desire to be able to support your family the best that you can, at risk of being singled out as stereotyping younger generations - I do think a lot of younger people these days put themselves first before family so kudos to you!

I'm certainly not qualified to make any recommendations on any kind of school for game programming or animation related degree's since that is outside the scope of my career and experiences. The one thing I would suggest though is to not worry as much about wasting *some* time. I know you want to jump into things as soon as possible, but I would carefully analyze all of your options thoroughly. You sound like the type of individual that would make a good informed decision, just make sure it's a decision based on your own research and try not to let any admissions adviser sell you. I could have done a bit more research when I selected my school, I wasn't rushing into things - I just didn't look at all the right options as close as I would have liked to. It wasn't an absolute terrible experience, but it could have been better.

Hopefully somebody with a bit more experience here will chime in with information that's probably closer to what you were looking for instead of my post

kimanyd · September 2009

The Art Institute seems to have a pretty sweet program (but it's expensive as hell from what I remember - three years at $20k/year). I almost went that route, but I couldn't stand all the drawing involved to see the designs through from conception to the final product.

Edit: You might want to check these guys out as well: http://www.fullsail.edu/

Stumpy713 · September 2009

Full Sail University looks like a really good school but its too far out of my way. I live in LA and i need to stay close by. Are there any schools like Full Sail around here?

Badly need career help/guidance.

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