Jon Paramel said:
So are you planning to stay at SJSU Laura?

Well, unless either me or my family gets rich from nowhere, I'm at SJSU to stay. 

 

But to be fair for all people who are looking into SJSU - GEs are a pain in the rear end. I am still in disbelief at the classes I have to take, even if I was trying for a nursing degree (somebody tell me why I need to take a class on the WEATHER?).

 

And I've heard some stuff about AAU and CCA as well. I don't know too, too much about CCA but enough people I know have been recommending it and it is near Pixar.

 

As for AAU. I took the summer pre-college courses there in the summer of my sophomore year beore junior year of high school. The school seems like a school that requires above all else: effort. The professors I met with were legit and they had awesome equipment to work with. I have seen absolutely amazing work from the school as well. Fair to say, though, I've also met incredibly lazy student work from people that seemed a bit pretentious at times.

 

I knew a girl who went there and her figure drawings were beautiful. She mentioned it's like a weeding process. Anyone can get in. But all the slackers end up failing because the classes are legit and they were not up to it. And they have some great professors with some good works. 

 

On the other hand, it is so obviously a for-profit school that the idea just sometimes can bug a person if that kind of stuff bugs you. And since they had this crazy idea of having campuses spread all over San Fran, if there is ever traffic where your bus is going you are going to be late for sure. But to be fair, it's still nice since the AAU bus is a free service for students.

 

But even with everything I'd still be a bit wary since this school has been known to be a rip off to people. I've heard good things but I've also heard really bad things. P: 

This post was edited by Laura Mars at January 7, 2012 3:06:28 AM PST

Hear, hear to that from a fellow Bay Area dweller of Cupertino! As GREAT as SJSU is - I've been on constant wariness of it. In general I've found SJSU to be waaaay crowded with people who I haven't really "clicked" with and a lot of the office work stuff has given me a headache. Example - one office tells me to go somewhere for information. I get there and they tell me to go back to that office I was sent from for more information. Another thing was when I was signing up for classes, since they basically just try to get through thousands of students, they gave me the wrong list of classes to sign up for for my major! I got it fixed at the LAST second because a teacher from the animation department found me and some other animation majors to sort that out. I wanted to go to a Laguna College of Art of Design since it seemed stable enough for me to safely graduate within four years. Classes are small and I LOVE that. The only reason I can NOT go all boils down to money. My family is pretty broke so my options were limited to either a community college of San Jose State. P: I won't complain, though, since I'm lucky enough to be living near a state school with a program THAT good for what I want. Even still, though - the work SJSU churns out is top notch and you will be definitely ready for a job by the end of it so I would NOT shoot it down completely. I know despite me not loving SJSU I'm not trying to shoot it down since despite all setbacks it is a GOOD option even still.

You can try San Jose State University. Don't let the "State" part fool you - it's actually a very, very good program and their animation program is very well known. You can look up some student and alumni work on their website: http://www.shrunkenheadman.com/

 

Like I said, it may sound not that cool but the ACTUAL graduate program they have requires a portfolio for it and I've seen their work live - it is of real top notch quality. Good luck to all your endeavors. :)

This post was edited by Laura Mars at December 28, 2011 10:40:45 PM PST

Thank you Tiana. That was inspirational, not even kidding you. :) Now I just have to talk with my parents about it... : / Which has been tricky for the past month. Sighhh... I got into a cheaper alternative and there are cheaper alternatives. San Jose State has an award winning animation program, but it's state school and with the prices of the thing expected to go up and up in the near future I'm a bit scared of that instability when I go to college. A private I can at least depend on to be slightly more stable than a state school that's running off of a state that is pulling off a LOT of cuts. That and Laguna just sounds SO good to me, the small class size and everything.

I kinda wanna jump in on this, too (sorry if this is so late and rude of me). Do you guys think that it would be worth it to go to a school you want to go despite the costs? My parents are incredibly convinced that if I take on the loans for me going to LCAD (I was also rejected to Calarts) I will be miserable for life. My Dad says if you're poor you best just find the quickest, cheapest solution to it and get it over and get a job. 

My family is broke and no one even has savings of any sorts under their belts and my EFC is 0 - and my family has debts that my Father refuses to disclose with me. And due to some tricky financial situations federal loans that involve intense checking of your income and stuff is out of the question. I estimate this will be a 15k-20k minimum loan a year but my mother thinks it will be more than that. Opinions? And anyone in debt is it seriously worth it, will an animation job seriously be able to cover that? 

This post was edited by Laura Mars at April 15, 2011 3:23:59 AM PDT