Hi! Sorry to bother you, prospective art center animation student here, like many others i’m still on the fence about which (ent arts or character animation) to apply to.. but i think the thing that i’m most worried about is: is Entertainment Design program manageable? I went on the tour last month and the guide said class sizes decrease every year (n have not graduated a person until THIS YEAR) because of how rigorous it is. I’m ready to work hard, but what is it like/any tips on staying ahead?
(cont) also an additional part since the ask ran out of space. I live an hour away from the school, and cant dorm (since they still dont plan on adding any until the 20s) so i have to drive there and back every day. The reason i ask whether it’s manageable or not is because, i’m worried that if i go into entdesign that hour lost driving will result in daily all nighters or something. Anyway, as mentioned i’m more than ready to work hard but i’m mostly worried about staying on top of it all haha.
This ask is so old at this point, sorry. I took an art-internet vacation. I’m kind of still on it. haha. BUT I thought this was worth answering in a general way, especially the last part, because I’m the best person to answer it.
Why? Because I also commuted an hour each way the whole time I was in Ent Design. So, BUH-BAM.
It goes like this: yes, you lose an hour each way. Yes, that sucks when you start realizing how much more time your classmates have to work on things (I’d only really notice when I’d be home sick, and look at a clock, and be like “SON OF A-” haha). Yes, that means you might not be able to just loaf around the school till all hours like everyone else, because your bed isn’t a convenient 10 minutes down the road.
However, it DOES make you prioritize more than other people. Because I couldn’t just drive home whenever, and because sleep was priority number one for me (in a school that treated not-sleeping like a badge of honor - IT IS NOT THAT BTW; GET SLEEP. GET. SLEEP.), I had to make decisions about using my time wisely, what was going to benefit me most, and keep my eye on my direct goals. I feel like I didn’t get as lost in the school work as some other people, because ultimately I had to say, “This is good enough for X,” or “This really helps my career pursuits,” versus just killing myself to get every-project-done-right-now-so-help-me-god. I also had to decide up front what was important to me on this journey. Yeah, I’d be in a killer architecture class run by hardasses who were exceptionally difficult graders, and yeah I’d be counting on scholarship money so I couldn’t just get an F. BUT I’d have to keep in mind that I ultimately wanted to design characters, not design sets. So, I needed to do just enough work to keep my head above water and maintain my grades on the less important things, and really throw myself at the stuff that’d have a real impact on my future.
Also, interesting thing about the commute, because Art Center IS stressful and the commute IS long: the commute kind of became this perfect refuge for me, where I had no choice but to decompress since I physically couldn’t work on an assignment while I was driving. I think if I hadn’t had that time, I would have filled the empty space with more work and driven myself crazy. I probably maintained more sanity because 2 hours a day, I HAD to do nothing.
Oh, and again, because it bears repeating - my ultimate advice: GET. SLEEP. Ignore people who act cocky about not sleeping for days. They’ll get in a car accident, or injure themselves on a sharp tool, or become super angry and irrational and their work will get worse (all of these are true stories, some of them my own). So: Sleep. It’s just school. It’s there to help you, not the other way around.
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