Anything we can do about bad art schools?
polycounter lvl 12
When I went to college, I hated it. I went to a school in Philadelphia, PA where the teachers discouraged people from doing what they really aspired to do. They also were mainly untrained and so far behind where the industry was. I of course learned on my own and put more into it than what they were giving out.
That school cost as much a cheap mortgage and will be the second biggest expense I have next to said mortgage in my lifetime. I vowed if I ever was a teacher things would be different.
I have now been fortunate to work in the games industry for a little now (as well as a few other areas) and had the opportunity to teach at another large mainstream art school and I realized while I want to be different, it's almost impossible. This school brings in everybody, hires instructors who don't have any experience (and frankly, give the wrong information) and while teaching adjunct I'm treated like a nobody. I've tried being vocal about the poor student work and expectations the whole way up through the chain. I'll tell a student their work doesn't come close to being entry level and they get only praise from the department head and fulltimers.
I have sat in their meetings and listened to "working at Gamestop is considered placement". I have watched them give people A's that don't even finish their work.
I know there has been more of an awareness recently about the cost of education vs. what you get out of it. But I'm wondering when it will actually be a big deal, if ever?
Just a general discussion. Thought people might wanna share their experiences for anyone considering spending that much on school.
That school cost as much a cheap mortgage and will be the second biggest expense I have next to said mortgage in my lifetime. I vowed if I ever was a teacher things would be different.
I have now been fortunate to work in the games industry for a little now (as well as a few other areas) and had the opportunity to teach at another large mainstream art school and I realized while I want to be different, it's almost impossible. This school brings in everybody, hires instructors who don't have any experience (and frankly, give the wrong information) and while teaching adjunct I'm treated like a nobody. I've tried being vocal about the poor student work and expectations the whole way up through the chain. I'll tell a student their work doesn't come close to being entry level and they get only praise from the department head and fulltimers.
I have sat in their meetings and listened to "working at Gamestop is considered placement". I have watched them give people A's that don't even finish their work.
I know there has been more of an awareness recently about the cost of education vs. what you get out of it. But I'm wondering when it will actually be a big deal, if ever?
Just a general discussion. Thought people might wanna share their experiences for anyone considering spending that much on school.
Replies
Seriously speaking though, I would agree with spreading word about how crap they can be - went to uni and was a complete waste of time, felt like we had to teach the tutors how to use the software since after a short while we had more knowledge on it than they did
Most bad schools use a chunk of their ill gotten gains on a sophisticated air defense network, so really, cruise missile are the way to go for a single evenings diplomacy.
I was like hey, listen, I need a website. I'll spend the entire semester doing the most awesome kickass website possible, deal?
-no
I got a signing of 10 leaders in the industry (potential employers, if u will) stating all I needed was a website. Maybe a business card.
Still, the school refused to acknowledge it and insisted I'd waste my time on something I didn't need.
The teacher of that class was George Pratt, now teamed up with the folks @ Massive Black. An enlightened artist, u might say. Despite his reputation, he dismissed me and just told me to shutup and do what I was told. He was afraid to stand up to his superiors (as if...) and talk sense into them
Either that or he was stupid
That's the way these institutes are, ironically. The higher u go up the departments, to the heads and directors and president, the more likely u'r to encounter blockheads that will hear nothing but the sound of $$$. Many of them r ex-artists that couldn't make it out there in the real world, and stubbornly cling to a set of old-fashioned ideals in an attempt to enforce their ego. There's not much u can do from the outside, the best way to affect the situation would be to join the system and improve it from the inside
That would be one terribly messy thread. A whole website on the other hand, now that's a winner (and a lot of work). Schools are a product, if we bought it, we should be able to review it. There is of course room for abuse (lecturers signing up with "coolkid92@gmail.com" accounts to give 5 star ratings) but I think they'd be easy to moderate.
Pick location, school/college/university and course taken (or type it in, if it doesn't exist)... be given a few checkboxes and rating systems to start off with "Were you taught life drawing/traditional animation/low poly/high poly/digital animation, software's used etc?" "yes/no" "Rate lesson competence" and then a comments section. Badda-bing-badda-boom.
Edit
Oh, and giant polycount adverts and banners and flashing .gifs to fill up all the white space too, obviously.
Define "worked". I've personally never seen that thread before, and it doesn't show up on a "getting into the games industry" google search.
A thread on a forum filled with people talking about their education isn't going to help anyone not already on the forum, and most people around here seem to be either pro, don't want to pay for school (I don't blame them) or are already studying.
I'm not against a thread, I just don't think it will actually help many people.
While Academy of Art isn't the worst offender, it still shows symptoms of a huge set of issues that art schools these days have. One of the worst is that a huge portion of art schools are focused exclusively on profit. They are businesses, so they don't give half a crap about whether or not you're good at what you do by the end of your term. You're there to give them money, and there's no way they're going to fail you if they can possibly help it.
The schools that aren't for-profit suffer from a different subset of problems, but it ends up that you get more or less the same result by the end: You have a bunch of students who've graduated with good grades, but are completely incapable of doing the shit they need to if they want to actually pay the bills. "Fine art" schools are often focused on stupid shit regarding how your art makes people feel and injecting bullshit useless abstract modern art crap into your work instead of teaching you fundamental things like perspective, color theory, anatomy, general tools and materials techniques, and how to sell yourself as an artist.
In either case, you're going to hear stories of new, part-time, or adjunct faculty who'd like to teach their students useful stuff about how to get into their industry of choice, but instead get steamrolled over by moronic hippies with tenure and/or assholes with more money than sense.
One of my former coworkers taught 3D classes at one of the Bay Area Art Institutes and told me that he was basically forbidden to fail anybody. He ended up being forced into giving passing grades to people who only showed up to class one or two times.
That shit is fucking stupid.
[vv]http://vimeo.com/41750420[/vv]
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryGameIndustry#Education
But it's not so cut-and-dried. Some people need the group dynamic and discipline to help them get started. Schools aren't universally bad, for learning game art.
If you want to go to school, I personally think it's better to choose a school that will give a solid fine arts education (drawing, painting, anatomy, etc.), and learn the game-specific bits from the web.
But you can do both from the web as well. Depends what kind of person you are.
I personally needed what a good fine arts school gave me.
Wow, if that was your experience with George, then I'm sorry you missed out. I had him as a teacher for a comic book class at VCU and he was a pretty solid teacher--knew his stuff and gave a sharp, usually to-the-point critique.
My school has a terrible game program, so I went into the Fine Arts program. They have classes that focus on modern art (Have experimental in the title), then they have things like Figure (Drawing, Painting, Sculpting) for anatomy work and then Drawing, Painting, Sculpture (I, II, III, IV, V, etc). I and II are for foundation, III and on are "free time" where you work on what you like with deadlines. I kind of like the way it's set up, you can choose if you want to go more abstract, more figure, or self directed.
I was really amazed to see bad commentaries of schools like VFS or Vanarts then I understood that a Good Creative Career is what you make of it. My artschool here in M
All of my teachers are professional artists on the side, and are eager to teach. Another great thing is how high the bar is set- you won't get A's unless your work is on par with the stuff you see in the industry. They don't want you to graduate as a sub-par artist. I even think you have to retake the class if you get anything under C-.
But ye, as Swizzle mentioned- it aint cheap! It's very obviously a for-profit school. Though, according to one of my teachers (yes not the most reliable source), they do everything to keep the tuition down, by e.g not giving faculty any discount from the schools art supply-store.
This has happened at my school several times as well. It really hurts the teacher to have to do that, when he knows that he's just doing the student a bad turn by giving him that passing grade.
I agree that this is probably the only thing that can help, if incrementally. And if they can't improve it by giving fitting grades to undeserving students, probably the best way would be to simply recommend Polycount as the best supplement possible to their education - one of my favorite professors (and a pcer!) introduced it to me and my class when I was a sophomore, and it has helped immensely, not only for learning skills in general but also by enlightening me as to the real state of things (for example, as this thread is doing) so I'm not floating around in a dumb bubble all through my college years.
A lot of folks worshiped the guy. Perhaps for that reason I expected more of him, but like many other teachers he wouldn't budge. He chose to act like just another cork in a system
the problem is that the 'fine art schools' dont teach classic fine art. the for the most part like Swizzle described. there filled with damaged cranky old lesbians who read to much Freud and 'Art Theory' nonsense. filled to to brim with super rich losers with no art skills and to much money to buy hipster gear and drugs. so the few kids that do have skills and want to learn how to make beautiful western art are essentially kicked to the curb.
its a sad state of affairs. the art world and its schools are fucked up. at this point i would say take some art classes from a guild. one that will teach you classical technique. if you want a degree go to community collage.
I think on top of how the schools are run is only part of the issue. I tend to think that most students are pretentious assholes who think that as long as they are paying a ton of money that they industry "owes" them a job. I had a teacher who I took drawing classes from at a community college after Full Sail and she was a great artist. When we asked her why she was teaching at the dumpy community college as opposed to the local private university she said it was because people attended the community college to learn. They left their egos at the door. People who went to the private school felt they were "owed" a good grade because they paid for it.
I thought it would be a lot different trying to change a college by working there (being on the inside) but in the end it didn't make a difference. I have never seen student feedback, which is a requirement of the school every term, actually make a difference.
I do think most the kids realize the reality once they have already invested too much into it. I think a lot come in and the first half are optimistic of the experience they're having or hopeful that the second half will give them the work they need for their portfolios. And the second half they come to realize how out of touch the school really is. And some of course don't learn it until after graduation.
The site that KrazyTaco gave is a good start. I wish there was more of an awareness for students or a place where the kids and their parents could go beforehand to get an idea of the school they're about to invest in both from ratings and student testimonials.
Back in the mid 90's there was nothing for game art/design. It was pretty much all generalised art/design/creative courses. If you wanted to apply it to any specific thing that was up to you to indulge/train yourself in!
But back then you were still expected to make sure that course/uni/school was for you. Going there then complaining would seem a bit of a dumb thing to do.
Considering the range of courses, wealth of information online etc these days, I'm surprised people still make bad decisions when they could be making perfect ones after a few days googling around, hmmm...
A fancy website/thread wouldn't fix much I don't think. If people are too lazy to spend a day or two asking/googling on forums etc to make a better decision about their next three years of learning, a large sum of money, and their future career, then they will be too lazy to use a slightly more convenient website!
It sounds harsh but you will get screwed over in life unless you take control, and taking control is pretty easy if you just take the time!
Dave
For me the course was under staffed and we where taught out of date techniques and information by most of our tutors, one left during the N64 era. So that should give you an idea. Now don't get me wrong, some of that information was helpful at the start of the course as an introduction, but we where being fed this all through that course. Then in my final year we had a new tutor fresh from the industry and you can really notice the difference... believe me. I learned more in that year than I did in my entire time at Uni.
But the thing that boils my piss the most is that we where an experiment year. They where trying out new things with the course such a classes and setups for the new arrivals the year below us.
Overall the Uni didn't deliver what it promised from the start in its sales pitch. We had no industry involvement at all. During my 4 years at Uni we only had two guest speakers, one from lionhead and another climax. Personally I think the industry should be more involved with colleges and Universities since these are potential future employees. One of the major benefits from this would be less time retraining grads from the schools standard to industry standards.
I could go on and on about this because it needs to be improved, fast, especially now that tuition fees have sky rocketed to £9000 a year. Thats an extra £6000 students are spending for the same information I was given and if that isnt daylight robbery I dont know what is.
True dat, dave. I went to a U.S. and A college simply for the visa/work permit, but I encountered many local Americans who have put themselves neck-high in debts just in order to go to college, smoke weed (well that's not necessarily contradictory to the cause) and play WoW. The only real hard-workers were the foreigners and those few who knew specifically where they wanted to be after these 4 years.
And here lies the problem: no one tried to teach them, or advise them as to where to go. They'd just hand in assignments that reflect none of what's modern. They would never sit in front of a kid and say ok, this is what u can do, what do u WANT to do? let's build on that! They'd shake off responsibility and let chips fall where they may. Unfortunately, even if they tried to look in and guide the individual student, they wouldn't know where to begin with!
The market has changed. Demands r super specific and competition is high. U can't go out there as a 'generalist' and a degree. U need profession. Lucky ones have found a niche after 4 years, some already had it from the get-go, but the majority just dwindles out there and barely gets minimum wage. And not necessarily from doing art
This isn't just a bunch of dykes that have no art-skillz and/or ability to teach, it's a whole program that's passe'. For some odd reason, I'd expect an art school to stay fresh
I think the problem with digital processes is they are changing very quickly.
I'd imagine for many what they have set down in a prospectus for a 2012 entry student for the 4th year masters will be out of date and probably wrong by the time they hit the 4th year!
I think that is why it's stupid to be too concerned with the process/technology. It'll be different again in 5yrs, and then 10yrs time it'll look different again.
Best to just study good fundamentals and then apply them to what you want to be arty/creative in.
In my experience good fundamentals are more valuable as you get older. I wish I'd done fine art as it'd have been more valuable to me for what I do right now than anything else in my view, even though everything I do is digital and on a computer!
Dave
That'll never work. Unless you can get to the top, which would take along time and you would just become corrupted by the system and accept it the way it is. I doubt that would even work, as its mostly outside forces which dictate them.
Its going to collapse eventually. It'll have to be rebuilt, hopefully in a better way if people start using their brains.
the power of the consumer is in their dollar - not their mouth or their keyboard. the only way these places are going to go away is if there's no longer money in it for them.
I teach and taught a class(s) at a great school Gnomon, and even there its not easy to get all aspects of a great education together for everyone. I argue until I'm blue in the face to get changes made to produce better student work, but the changes involve more managing and more costs, also it would be a lot more work for the people currently there full-time. So while some of the changes are possible its not something easily done. I can't imagine how hard it is if you don't have the talent pool Gnomon pulls from.
While I say Gnomon is a good school, I still feel like students rarely meet my expectations. So I'm constantly re-evaluating how I teach and what I can do to best prepare students for the horrors of the first job hunt.
(I teach Advance Dynamics in Maya so its also quite specific)
sue me, I'm in China!
but seriously, in a country like Canada, I doubt this would hold up in court. What next, a restaurant that only serves you if you sign you'll never write a critique?
Just because it's in a contract doesn't mean it's "the law". You can put pretty much anything in a contract. They can even put a clause that you have to wear your underwear inside out while attending classes. If you can enforce it and get away with it is an entirely different thing though. I think it's just scare tactics, which should tell you how miserable that school's management is.
Common law also states that the statements about the 'victim' have to be false for it to be punishable, I think.
You don't need a contract to sue somebody for slander - it wouldn't make sense to add this to a contract, unless you want to sue them for breach of contract on top of suing them for slander. But that's rather ridiculous.
I also have many friends going to university. For example, I know a few guys in engineering who are a similar case. They had high grades in high school, they are able to maintain the minimum average to not be kicked out of university (I believe it's only around 60%), they pay their tuition, but still waste all their time getting high and playing video games. It's the same case, they are meeting the schools minimum requirements, and paying tuition, but again these guys probably won't get jobs because their marks will reflect their effort, much like our portfolios represent our skills.
Now I know people in other degrees who are the same story as well. However for these people, they don't have a public forum like Polycount as far as I know. So this type of 'poor' education happens everywhere, unfortunately it just may be more prominent in game schools. Yes it suck that good people get burned by these schools, but people have to have responsibility for the schools they go to and the research, or lack of, that they do.
And for the record, the people in university I am referring to are studying at one of the top 100 university's in the world, so it does go all the way up the chain.
Anyways this has turned into a wall of text and I am probably way off topic, I guess my point is, people need to be help responsible for what they do, not the schools. I'm playing devils advocate here, but school costs 30,000$+, please do some research. It's pretty uncommon of someone spending that much cash on a car then realising the car is garbage. Do some research, find out what's up, and spend more time in school working and researching then dicking around.
I think the problem is not that people who don't work on their skills next to studying don't get a job. The problem with many game colleges is that the value for the money is often not right. Tuition goes up and standards go down, and students, even the ones who put in a lot of work, don't really get what they're paying for. There's responsibility required on both sides. So yes, to a degree the uni can be blamed.
If that weren't the case then most Polycounters wouldn't advocate studying anything else over getting a game degree.
Complain to the chairmen or board of your school. Bring these issues to their attention, explain it in full detail about how things are and how things should be. If they fail to see your point and just see money, then you are in the wrong place.
If you really want to make a difference, think you can and feel like no one is listening to you, start your own art sessions; Arrange group meetings with the loyal students (I am pretty sure you are not completely ignored, or, not everyone treats you like nobody.) Take things from there. Teach them the way you want to, and if that makes a small improvement in their work, others will see it, join your group and help you grow it.
To answer your straight question about this issue being a big deal?
This isnt going to be a big deal, because Most Colleges/Univs are a joke now. It's retarded-ly expensive, less concentrated on teaching and more on gaining cash type of a business now. I dont think its ever going to change or people will give a damn about it.
That is a bleak video.
Kinda common sense but still very bleak.
I'm surprised things are that bad and so many people are basically hoodwinked into these places.
Caveat emptor and all that, but it's pretty bad there isn't at least some legislation to control these 'schools' a bit more and make them clearly un-attractive and either change their ways or close.
Dave
I know in Ringling they frequently told us about 80% Illustration majors don't get a job after school doing art. It may have been even over 90%. That's absurd. Obviously somethging was not done right there but still, no change. I guess academics who don't meet a certain 'success rate' should be amended, or at least this success rate should be plastered - by law - over everything they promote. Just like cigarettes tell u it's deadly and car ads have to indicate level of pollution.
As you so rightly note though, the solution is just a bit of self-motivation to make sure the schooling is right for you!
Dave
People can 'blame' the schools all they want, but 99% of their success is completely based on what the students put into it.
That said, I honestly believe having a strong peer group that are close personally, and are open, honest, and share info with each other are the ones that are able to help each other the most.
This is my 3rd year teaching. Seeing the dynamic from class to class, individual to individual, I realise the only thing I can be to them is a resource, and maybe an enabler. What I can't do is MOTIVATE them or get them to push their own abilities.
Last semester I taught a course, brought in Grassetti as a guest speaker, brought in Nick Oroc to teach the concept class, (who brought in the Art Director for Deus Ex Human Revolution as a guest). The students had access to all of the Montreal IGDA talks, MIGS, local studio tours (Eidos/EA/Gameloft/THQ/Funcom/Behaviour/Ubisoft etc.)
(Just to frame the quality of the IGDA talks here in Montreal - last nights talk was by the Dishonored devs, in the past 3 years we've had Halo level design talk, Bioshock art talk, ThatGameCompany, the Sword & Sorcery guys, Square-Enix etc).
I'm still learning how to become a better teacher, give better lessons, give more structured critiques, etc, but there's a VERY LARGE discrepancy in the student's abilities. Individual students also learn at different rates, with different levels of motivation, and bring vastly diverse attitudes.
^_^
What you're describing is true of every school, every student, and every teacher. The problem isn't a matter of teaching, it's a matter of motivation. More traditional schools aren't solely interested in profit. They like profit, to be sure, and profit is necessary for their continued operation. But there are also extensive programs in place to help student's pay for college and keep the entire structure affordable. (scholarships, grants, charitable donations, etc...) Even impoverished students who work hard and apply for the right scholarships can usually go to college, get a decent education, and graduate with little to no debt.
"Game Colleges" are by-and-large purely for-profit degree farms. They hoodwink unwitting students into shackling themselves with crippling debt for a degree that won't help them, and technical skills that are obsolete before they even graduate. This is not true for all of them, and there are instructors like yourself who are actually motivated to improve the quality of their teaching.
But at the moment, there is a frightening disparity between the more traditional higher education system, and the schools generally associated with game design. And the less scrupulous for-profit colleges are giving a bad reputation to the few schools that are actually trying to push game education forward.
Yeah I agree that this is very much a reality - students must put forth their effort and research a school to the "best of their ability" (note: not everything is transparent). But anyone can put 99% into something and not go to school for it. People expect that when you're giving up tens of thousands of dollars that you'll be getting professional experiences and insights you wouldn't have working at home. There are great instructors - I am sure you're one and I know I try to be the best. But I'm referring to the schools that hire teachers that don't have skills good enough to be in the professional world, are unaccepting or flat out unwilling to change their methods or their programs to adapt to a changing industry, and have people all the way up the chain that are OK with giving good grades for really bad work and when questioned about it make excuses for why this is the case.
Students have to do their part but schools have to as well. I can teach myself something on my own. Schools should boost that speed by a factor, in order to pull THEIR own weight. I'm often asking myself as a teacher, despite the effort I see students putting fourth, what can I do to help them more. Should I try another teaching style with this class? etc. Its not easy to teach well, it takes constant effort, and it wears me out sometimes. I can understand why someone might not want to keep caring or trying, I burn out ever few terms and take a term or two off.
and Quickel, those are just broken schools/teachers. Its hard to deal with those kind of people, but they are not just in school. They are all over the film and game industry... so maybe thats another kind of education! hah. no really thats always rough.
For example, just because a school offers a general Game Art & Design class doesn't mean a student is going to walk away from there a polished artist or amazing designer. I think they need to break these downs into focused studies rather than generalized mash up of classes. Unfortunately, with this case, students often learn the career path of choice halfway through their studies, finally deciding they want to be a designer, TA, Animator or Artist. These are things that need to be rectified before tuition starts, really in my opinion.
Something simple that could be offered up as an entranceway, to further push the goals of a student, rather than throwing them into the masses of the various standard studio departments.
If it were me, i'd shape a game art program to something more simplified and goal oriented, targetting on specific strengths. It would be nice to allow students to pave their own paths by setting themsevles on a goal.
For example, Student A comes to school, and says "I want to make video games". Well an advisor (who, I hope to God....is familiar with the industry) responds, that's great, what interests you about it, when playing video games, what aspects do you enjoy most? Here, take this survey and let me know what you think. Essentially, the survey in which a student immediately decides what direction he/she is most passionate about. Survey Complete, Tada, you seem like you enjoy creating weapons for games, you should be an artist. Of course this is rather vague version of my idealistic course of guidance.
In general, in order for schools to keep up to date with graduating competitive students, they will need tools, and instructors, who constantly evolve, in tandem with the gaming industry to provide up-to-date material, in ensuring students are competing for next generation or targeted development fields. Of course, with that means new curriculum, new classes, new study, more work. Which is why if I were an instructor, I personally would find it very scary to handle a classroom of 30, in a large Game Art class. In my ideal situation, I would prefer students learn from hands on, target specific courses that are simple, to the point, and refine the student as an artist, and technically proficient as a developer. Meaning, fundamentals that are tied in with next generation development, applying traditional art practices such as color, composition, form, etc.
It is unfortunate, but with constant tools and programs that come out that fit into popular pipeline, such as xNormals, nDO2, zBrush, Mudbox, 3dCoat, etc, it's hard for any instructor or curriculum with a standardized system to involve 3rd party programs that have such an immense weight of importance to game artists. Same with the evolution of PS6, or Autodesk products. In my opinion, would keep any curriculum from up to date, as the industry is constantly evolving.
It is tough, and larger schools have it even worse. But really when it comes down to it, students have to go in with full awareness and expected motivation to persue their personal understand of game development through personal vs professional pipeline. And it is the instructors job, to provide them that guidance.
With Game Development, at its fast spaced evolution, I really see fit that instructors go by the lines of "Coach, don't teach". There are so many benefits, and that starts with a lot more question, vs a lot more bitching from students. But when it comes to hands on material, students need to prep themselves, and let the fellow instructor as an artist, do his/her job and critique.
My 2 cents.
In a classroom they should offer you industry insight and techniques which are not short lived, but which are fundamentals of the career. Life drawing, anatomy, sculpting, shaders, digital rendering, digital lighting, compositing basics, pipelines for game and film, how a production environment works, etc. are all things that haven't, in its core, changed too much in the last years. The core principles of all this are still true. Better learn this than a tool like Crazybump - while Normal maps will be with us for a while - crazybump is already on its way out being replaced by nDo2. And who knows what will come after nDo2.
10 years after graduating the stuff that's still useful are the core basics - the art classes I took, the classes about lighting, about camera work, the rigging classes, the color theory classes, the compositing classes, but not the application specific classes such as "Into to Adobe Shockwave" or some unknown but cool poly modelling tool of the hour.
Build a foundation first, then move to application. In the long run someone who understands why we're building a house the way we're building it is more useful than someone who just can lay bricks and nothing else. But why go to uni at all when you just want to be a bricklayer anyway?
Downside? If you want a job right after graduation, you need to learn on your own. The good? You'll have skills that will last you longer and give you a deeper understanding of what you do and why you do it.
I agree that would be ideal ... wouldn't it be awesome if we all knew what we wanted to specialize in, coming into our freshman year?
anyway: my university wasn't great in a lot of aspects, but it definitely helped me, and if its just for figuring out what i didnt like about that school and avoiding in my professional career. the students at that uni are not the best of the best, but there is a bunch of talents there and the students in general are very pro-active about improving the course situation, which is a slow process but seems to start bearing fruits.
what is also helping is that those students who made a career are now starting to come back to give lectures - not fulltime, but as guest lecturers. I did a small course there, which to be honest didn't work out as well as I hoped due to timing constraints, but I'll go back and offer more courses as soon as I have some spare time in production, with a better time schedule. It won't make me much money extra (if any), but its good to know that you help others to succeed (hopefully) and from a business point of view helping schools in your area can help scout and recruit a lot of talent.
i think the worst thing to improve schools is, to become a fulltime staffer there (at least from my current experience). maybe it will be an improvement for a year or two, but after that, my bet is, you're just losing connection to "the real industry" and all advice offered will always be outdated already.
I wouldn't be in games then. I learned most about art at college. Before that I learned how to program at a trade school.
If anything, university courses should do one thing, teach more foundations! There's so many student reels who just have one thing: bad art. And while e.g. a modeler has a concept to follow, he is the one who translates the rough thing into a 3D piece of art and adds his own skill to the translation from 2D to 3D. Having a solid foundation and art practice can make or break your concept.
There's a reason why studios prefer people with strong traditional foundations over people with strong technical foundations when hiring. Because it's easier to teach the application-of-the-day vs. teaching art practice and skills. Teach a trained sculptor ZBrush and you'll get more out of it in shorter time than training a ZBrush artist, who never studied it, anatomy.
The foundations are the hard thing to master, the applications are often surprisingly easy. If you never used 3ds max or maya before, or if you just finished learning an application, you will think differently, but ask any experienced artist in the industry and the challenge they face is art - and perfecting their skills as artists - and not applications. (even for tech art this is true - the challenge are workflows, programming paradigms, but not max script or MEL).
Actually I feel a bit stupid that I have to advocate art skills over stuff like "rigging" since I'm a tech artist. But please, more traditional art in "games" education, less button pushing!
Zbrush/Max/Maya users will remain just that: users, who're stuck at the bottom of the production. If you want to move ahead, practice art - sculpting, painting, drawing, perspective, composition, color theory, animation principles, timing. This will set you apart from the users. This will some day put you into the seat of the person who directs the art and not just the minion. Learning all this on your own is much much harder than in college where you can collaborate, participate in a studio setting, have live models, etc.
Wasting your cash (and many games courses cost a LOT!) on something that's outdated in 2 - 3 years is just plain stupid. You will be paying student loans long after the tech died that you learned about. But foundations and artistic core skills aren't outdated any time soon.
Unfortunately many college educators and students are very short sighted - although it's hard to blame them with the current situation - job placement is paramount. Practical skills are better for this than deep understanding of the core art skills. But in the long run, you better study foundations and traditional art.
If any add some courses that explain the games workflows, pipelines and the big picture of how designers, programmers, artists, etc. work together. This also seems to be missing when I talk to junior people. Once the modeling / animation pipeline ends, many are quite clueless...