Back when I was in uni, one of my lecturers encouraged the class to go to Polycount. It was because of him that I "discovered" Polycount and a passion for Game Art. If I didn't go uni, I woulda spent all that time on WoW :( I feel that paying £16k for a URL to Polycount at that point in my life, was definitely worth it.…
I first joined Polycount through a teacher's recommendation. And I did have a character modeling class where part of the assignment was to post our work on Polycount for critique, but mine was so bad that I deleted it after I got the grade.
My teacher told us all to post. But he made it clear to post work. Which I think is an important distinction. But anyway, I'd known about Polycount for ages; unlike my classmates, who still don't seem to get it. I still have to actively push people in the direction of Polycount.
I learnt about here from a friend who studies at another university, but I recommend it to all the game art students, the huge leap from where I was at year 2 to now was pretty much all down to Polycounters!
I wish my university knew what polycount was. Instead, it's filled with people that find it necessary to gloat about how much money their parents have while they go and spend thousands of dollars each semester to study english and get drunk every night. Man I hate school.