Does this sound like a legitimate school to go to?

Reddler

I'm one of the many who's trying to improve their skills. There's a technical college in my city that provides an animation course that focuses on concept, modeling, texturing, rigging and animation. It also has level design, asset creation, and digital lighting. I saw ZBrush in the video. I'm assuming they have 3DS Max lying around somewhere.. Here is a link to the course.
https://madisoncollege.edu/program/animation
It's an associate's degree course. Last year they had 7 graduates. Only 2 of them got a job. The year before they had 10 graduates, and 4 of them got a job. The instructor says in the video that they strictly focus on the qualities that will land the student a job. Two students were noted going to Lost Boys Interactive and Human Head Studios (both of these in-city businesses).
$10,000 Tuition.
What do you think?
Thanks in advance.

PixelMasher

Doesn't sound too amazing, I would just take a couple CGMA courses for a fraction of the price and be taught by actual industry professionals who are currently working in the industry. You will learn a lot more relevant skills.

Taylor Brown

I would continue your own personal studies using more inexpensive sites like 3DMotive and Gnomon while building up to a class like CGMA as Pixelmasher mentioned. Based on your one showcase post, you're right at the beginning of your journey and there's no better time to learn the best practices from people who know what they are talking about. There's nothing worse than spending time and/or money on classes that only serve to reinforce inferior or outdated workflows that you'll then have to unlearn.

Reddler

Is Pluralsight a good site as well? I know it's cheap.

Alex_J

I got started with pluralsight. It's a great place to go from 0 to step 1. That is, getting basic familiarity with the fundamentals of 3d and your programs. It's set up pretty well so you can do different learning "paths" which basically compiles a bunch of videos together all centered on a certain topic, and going from beginner to more advanced. There is also lots of redundancy -- videos covering the same topics but from different teachers. This might not sound to exciting, but it gives you two powerful components of learning : exposure and repetition.

**just read taylor's response, and yes it is true that some of the pluralsight tutorials will teach you about certain "rules" which aren't actually rules at all. But as long as you round out your learning by reading the wiki here, reading archived threads, and asking questions, it's fine. Just remember that n-gons aren't the devil and triangles are your friend.

sacboi

Note, also don't forget too post work for critique, either here or else where. When I first started schools and online libraries were very sparse on the ground so peer review was primarily and currently still an extremely valuable learning resource to utilise.

Biomag

2 out of 7 and 4 out of 10 sounds better than most schools/courses I've heard of. 10k to learn the basics in every part out the pipeline isn't bad either, but I've not looked up the details of this one. I might be biased as I did a similar school for 1 year and it was a great starting point. I even got a job before I finished it. Not a great studio/game by any standards, but the pay was far better than most juniors could get and it paid for the education and further courses. So even if its just some small in-town-studio it can be better than what 90% of the students achieve.

10k for a school that runs a year and is organized with a complete program to give you the full picture of the pipeline involved in creating games might be better than you by yourself trying to find the right tutorial and courses. I definitely wouldn't have been able to organize my curiculum by myself, but this completely depends on what kind of person you are. 

The other thing is - if you think that you are ready for the industry after a 1 year school you are probably in for a very bad surprise. Except for small local studios/indies you will have a very hard time finding a job. And even those will be only available if you did far more than what your courses required.

Let's get real here its less than about 10% of those taking online courses like CGMA that make the cut. The courses are great, but most people simply don't have a realistic view where they are at. I would say 50% of those taking courses like that are at a point where they actually benefit from doing them, maybe even less. For the rest its a waste of money and any free tutorial would have served them more.


Summing it up:
Without knowing the school I can't say anything about it, but 10k to get a introduction in the whole pipeline doesn't sound bad. It mainly depends on how disciplined you are to learn on your own or if you lean better in a school environment. CGMA and other courses done by AAA-artist make only sense to get over the edge, not to reach it. And getting into the industry is a marathon not a sprint, so keep the big picture in mind and don't rush for the finish or you will tire out far too soon - the finish line only looks close, but it isn't.

Taylor Brown

To be fair, CGMA does offer beginner classes. They do seem to have solid logic behind their progression of courses starting with the ABCs of Maya up to full scale organic world building / next gen character creation. That still relies on an honest self critique of your personal skill level to make the best use of.

Barbarian

Agree with Biomag on this one. CMGA provides a "potpourri" of course offerings that are best for "getting over the edge" as noted above. For CGMA courses to work best you need to develop to the point that the critique/feedback will best benefit you. I don't know about that technical school, but 10K for a technical degree is reasonable, especially if you are still polishing the fundamentals. CGMA courses are developed by pros that really do not coordinate with each other. The relationship of one course to another is only a "loose connection." It is the hard core critique that provides the value in their offerings. Taking a dozen or so CGNA workshops will easily add up to $10K and you do not get a "degree" if that is important to you.

You can always cherry pick some courses from a community college, study on your own, and then take some CGMA workshops when you are at the point that the feedback will matter the most.