College/Career Advice

Right now I am a junior in High School, and it is time for me to start considering what I am going ot do after I graduate. Right nowe I am really interested in one of the graphical design fields. I am semi-familiar with 3D-Rendering, know Photoshop pretty well, and am pretty good with Flash and Dreamweaver as well. I just wanted some insight into a possible career field. I have a friend who is a Graphical art Director of sorts right now, and he recommended that I check out Platt College in SoCal, based on the site, this school appears to be what I am looking for, but I am wondering if there are any other schools to consider. Any help would be greatly appreciated....
Thanks....

Im personally studying Multimedia Design atm, I'm quite satisfied.
Afther three years I will have a bachelor degree en either Media or in Major Graphics etc..

If you're not sure what you want to do exactly I'd attend a Junior College for a couple semesters and take classes in all the fields your interested in to narrow it down. Personally I think it’s kind of a waste if you go to a specialized school and you’re not sure that’s exactly what you want.

there's a LOT of other schools out there, especially around where you live. off the top of my head there's art center college of design and cal arts which are both very highly regarded.

you mentioned several different things tho that arent necessarily related, 3d has little to do with general graphic design and there's even some areas of 3d that get very specialized (like character animation). i'd say some more personal exploration for you is definitely something you want to do, take a month or two and REALLY Get into 3d or something else that piques your interest and how it goes.

personally i would shy away from multimedia/web type degrees. if you want to be a designer get a degree in graphic design, you can always learn the software on the web side of things but its a LOT tougher to develop design skills on your own. those design skills can apply to interactive work, motion graphics, print design, or anything else you might want to venture into.

hope that helps...

chris

Personally I think it’s kind of a waste if you go to a specialized school and you’re not sure that’s exactly what you want.

Truth. Actually, what I intend to do is to major in some generic computer field and really just do a little bit of everything, to make myself as useful as possible for prospective job offers. The last thing you want to do is pigeonhole yourself into doing just one specific thing and have a rough time because even though you can do that one thing relaly well, there are a thousand other people who can do that same thing very well too.

[QUOTE=Fig]there's a LOT of other schools out there, especially around where you live. off the top of my head there's art center college of design and cal arts which are both very highly regarded.

you mentioned several different things tho that arent necessarily related, 3d has little to do with general graphic design and there's even some areas of 3d that get very specialized (like character animation). i'd say some more personal exploration for you is definitely something you want to do, take a month or two and REALLY Get into 3d or something else that piques your interest and how it goes.

personally i would shy away from multimedia/web type degrees. if you want to be a designer get a degree in graphic design, you can always learn the software on the web side of things but its a LOT tougher to develop design skills on your own. those design skills can apply to interactive work, motion graphics, print design, or anything else you might want to venture into.

hope that helps...

chris[/QUOTE]


I agree with Fig. Learn design and then learn all the other stuff you want to do as well. Like he said, you can apply design skills to interactive work, motion graphics, print design, and so on.

[QUOTE=supahsekzy]Truth. Actually, what I intend to do is to major in some generic computer field and really just do a little bit of everything, to make myself as useful as possible for prospective job offers. The last thing you want to do is pigeonhole yourself into doing just one specific thing and have a rough time because even though you can do that one thing relaly well, there are a thousand other people who can do that same thing very well too.[/QUOTE]

Same, currently i'm at Colorado State University majoring in computer information systems. I hope to do IT consulting as soon as i can, because that's what makes the big bucks..

Nos.