School Success Rate

[HellMark]

I'm interested in opening a discussion on how successful schools have been (or not) in getting students jobs in the industry. I'd like to hear from all sides so it's not limited to just students or graduates. Also I would like to keep the focus on art specifically and not animation or programming though technical artists would be good.

Note: I realize things are a bit of a wild card lately with the economy, studio closings, etc...

So far what I've read on most forums, including here, is focus on the portfolio. Just having the degree is not enough or sometimes not needed at all. I agree with this. I was self taught and continue to do so. Game Artisans has been an incredible source. I think sites like Game Artisans should be included resources in teaching. Where better to draw knowledge then those in the trenches. Teachers should have students involved in the community.

I've done some research on courses offered by schools and for some like Cogswell the focus is too general. I know a couple of students who have come out and done well but I think a student coming out of school at best will have a good understanding of a bunch of things but not a focus in an area that will land them a job working on a particular field. Most student portfolios reflect this.

If a student is not sure of what route they want to take in the industry I can see the benefit of more generalized studies initially but once a path has been chosen specilization needs to happen. Also having basic foundation knowledge (ie. color theory) should be a staple of any education.

I believe things can be greatly improved on. I'd like to see students given the tools to come out to be more successful and not waste time and money. For now I think a lot of these schools are running with blinders on.

Mark

[Mrpearlzildjian]

I went to Full Sail for 1 year and I came out owing them $29,000 and only knew how to model NURBS in Maya.

Since then, I have taught myself poly modeling, texturing, normal mapping, AO, Zbrush, xNormal, Mudbox, Max(a little), Photoshop, Illustrator, and though irrelevant, I also learned audio production a bit too.

In my opinion, school can only give you a small foundation to build on. Some people need school for motivation, but although I am a HUGE procrastinator, I am self motivated. We are lucky to be working in an industry where what you can do will get you a job, not how many degrees you have.

Which is good for me, because of all that money I owe my school, lol

[Frump]

This is a total case by case basis. It is not necessarily the schools themselves that really prepare you. It's on the instructors, the people who design the courses and the students themselves. It definitely helps if the school has had these programs available for a number of years so that they have had time to improve them.

I was very fortunate to have a great experience in school. My graduating class was the first on a redesigned program with a focus on modeling and due to that we had a fairly strong graduating class. The largest choices we had to make on our specialization were between environments, characters and also which industry we wanted to get into. I gained a lot more knowledge through my course than just the basics and foundations. Though we did have a lot of work in those areas, with almost a year of traditional art courses mixed in with our digital courses. My course was accelerated and we have incredible amounts to do with short deadlines, no classes being longer than 11 weeks. We even had to take part in small productions in our course. Some great instructors along the way helped us grow and develop our talents. And we constantly had many people giving us lots of different advice and it really just helped us in deciding things for ourselves. I feel like I have come out being ready for the industry.

But as well it is completely on the students, because a lot of the people I graduated with do not frequently take part in online communities despite our instructors and even me emphasizing how important it is. And some of them are not certain on what their focus or goals are. Many did not make it through the entire course and many switched to other things. These people who don't take part in the online communities might never have found their way into it without schooling.

Despite having gotten a lot out of my education you can always learn more. This isn't necessarily a failure with the teaching. For instance, we were never taught about different work flows like ones including retopology. So I have learned it on my own. We also never had specific training in low poly modeling or even many current gen techniques like normal mapping. It was sort of expected of us at our school that we took responsibility for a certain level of our learning. We even made our instructors learn some things that they didn't know that we had found on our own. And now the student after us will have this knowledge given to them.

Another thing I think is great about having the school experience is that you gain connections with your peers. The people that I became quick friends with and graduated with are connections that I carry with me on my way into the industry. Also along the way you have immense resources for help and critique. Fellow students and teachers being there every day was a great benefit. We also had a lot of mentors who were in the industry who know what people are looking for. This really helped when we began working on our demo reels and preparing to graduate. And now that we are graduated we are provided with 6 months of aid in finding work.

I am glad I went. Also there is a huge focus here for kids to go to some form of post-secondary education, so that is a big factor in why you might go to school. It was for me. If I didn't fall into it like I did I would have ended up either going to school for this later in life or just on a completely different crappy path. There's probably more I could say but this is already a long post and it's hard to organize my thoughts after a while. Which is why I didn't go to an academic university where I'd have to write many long papers. :P

I don't have a job yet. I think this is more due to the rough state of the job market at this moment, at least I would hope so. :paper:

[LowRez]

I think it should be noted also that "school" (university) is different depending on where you live. For example in England I went to uni for 3 years have a 2:1 Bachelor degree yet I only have about a £10k low intrest student loan for 3 years of uni.

I learned alot from both uni and more importantly being around others learning and going "hey dude see what I just did, this is how you do it" It was a great learning experience, I didnt leave with a "industry" quality portfolio but I left with the skills to make an industry quality portfolio and pieces of work.

I then used places like CGchat/Cgtalk to up my skills with the comps and after taking a 6 month detour of going round england visiting friends and getting drunk, I made my portfolio joined and agency and had a job 3 weeks later.

To me if your in England where education is "cheap" you should do it for several reasons, 1. to learn, 2. to meet people learning the same thing as you 3. the girls ;)

Also now Im in the games industry I have a msn messenger list with about 60 other grads who are in the industry, which is instant networking should I ever require it :P