I could use some guidance figuring out what to look for as far as a major/minor goes for D22. She says she would like to work in animation, but doing the mathematical modeling and physics for the characters as well as doing the actual animating. She also has an interest in building animatronics. She knows she does not want a BFA or to go to an art school. But we are spending a lot of time trying to figure out which degrees would set her up to do what she is interested in. I know a lot will come down to her personality and finding the spot that she wants, but having the right tools would be good. I also realize she may change her mind a lot before even applying, let alone after she starts college, but you have to start somewhere.
Any suggestions? Does she find an engineering program or math or ?? A minor in animation? I really am trying to learn a lot about this, as it’s just not anything I’m familiar with as a career.
This is not my area of expertise. That said, however, I would look at Rochester Institute of Technology. I believe that school has all the types of programs your daughter is interested in. If she finds that the courses that would lead to her desired career pathway are in the physics department or animation department or mechanical engineering department or wherever, that might be a good way to look and see what other colleges offer a similar major.
She may also want to look at SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) as I suspect they may have this as well. The Atlanta campus also allows students to cross-register at Georgia Tech (and other Atlanta schools), so there may be some specifics about what coursework/departments are needed.
My daughter is studying this as a visualization major at Texas A&M. They have a great program. They take calc and physics and learn to code with python and maya and more.
“The Bachelor of Science in Visualization program fosters students’ artistic, scientific and technical abilities. Students develop the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills needed to be successful in the field. Each student chooses a concentration in which they develop a focused expertise. Interdisciplinary coursework complements their focus to provide a broad foundation of knowledge.
Thank you @AustenNut ! I’ve looked at the RIT website, but clearly not in the right place. I didn’t find the Motion Picture Science or Imaging Science and those look like something she’d like. I will show her today. They really do mesh the art and the engineering well with those degrees.
Thank you! The Purdue degree looks interesting to me. I always think of Purdue for engineering, but I will have to dig around more there. I don’t think she’d want to go as far as California for college. I could see moving there after for a job, but not quite for college. But I will look at those and DePaul with her as well. I like that they are linking CS and art/animation together.
If you let us know what your daughter is looking for, we can provide additional assistance. What parts of the country does she want to stay in (or avoid)? What’s her academic background? What’s the budget?
We’re in Michigan. She’s willing to move away but I don’t really know how far. RIT would be fine. She prefers so the seasons but when we visited Alabama last month, she thought that was actually okay. I think location is not as important as finding the program she wants and the extras she’d like. I’m sure she’d prefer midwest, east coast, and maybe a little to the west and south, if at all possible.
She is a junior and is in the IB diploma program. She has an uw 4.0 right now and may keep that this year. She’s had 2 crappy years of high school though and this year is better, but still not normal. I am sure next year will also be not normal, but hopefully a little better. She has a 1430 SAT (750 English and 680 math) and will retake in April on the school day testing. She may try the ACT in the spring, but I’m not sure on that. I think her math will go up just because of having a regular math class again this year. She was pretty rusty on some concepts this summer.
She has always been good at math, but has disliked it because it’s boring and she had one really not good elementary teacher that left her hating math. She was on the plus 2 track and had Algebra 2 in 9th. But since the IB program does not allow for many electives, she took AP Stats last year instead of pre-calc. This turned out to be good because she loved that class and how it used math in applications instead of just learning theory. This year, she is in Math AI and will do the HL version. She finds it very easy, but interesting as it is applying math. She’s in IB physics HL and really enjoys that a lot.
She would love to continue languages. She is in IB Chinese and Spanish 3 this year and will do IB Spanish next year as her group 6 alternative. She also really likes history, especially historical fashion.
We won’t get any need based aid. We do have some saved. I’d like to keep the budget to $25k or so for any OOS colleges. In-state could be up to $30k.
I believe in starting any college search with finding the safeties: the schools that your kid would be happy to attend, that are extremely likely for acceptance, and that are affordable. With that in mind, some possibilities include:
Michigan State appears to have options that might be more aligned to your daughter’s interests. There’s a degree in Digital Storytelling with an available concentration in animation. There’s also a degree in Games and Interactive Media.
Being a strong student from Michigan, Ann Arbor is usually on the desired list, although it is not a safety for anyone except for athletes with a Likely Letter. I wasn’t able to find much in the way of programming that seemed exactly what your daughter is looking for (which still might be a little nebulous at this point, anyway). But two options I thought of as possibilities are the Interdisciplinary Physics major where she might be able to have the animation of the physics of bodies be the complementary field or Biomedical Engineering (again, pretty different from what she’s been looking at, but perhaps of interest?
With a $25k budget, in-state options are likely going to be your best bets. It’s highly unlikely that RIT or DePaul would meet the budget even after merit aid. Looking at Clarkson’s CDS, it’s unlikely to get below about $35k and ditto for Purdue or UNC-Wilmington. I would say that Texas A&M remains a possibility to meet budget…many students with even small merit aid scholarships then qualify for in-state tuition.
If she’s really wanting to leave the state, then one possibility that could probably hit budget is Oglethorpe. It has a flagship match program where qualifying students (like your daughter) would pay their home state’s flagship rate for tuition. Possibilities include the Medical & Scientific Illustration program as well as the Physics and Liberal Studies major that would include four or five classes in a secondary discipline (perhaps like the art classes?). It also offers an individualized major option. Oglethorpe is part of the Atlanta consortium allowing classes to be taken at other area colleges, so she could supplement her coursework with specialized classes at SCAD or Georgia Tech, too.
I should have added that she is very non competitive in nature. She has already said U of Michigan is a no just from what friends say. That could change if it has the right program.
I looked at the MSU program and I’m just not sure. I wish I understood more about the field and what she wants from it.
Thank you again for so many options. We will spend some time looking through over the break in a few weeks. Hopefully we can get a few visits in this spring and she can talk to someone in the programs
In the meantime I will be running the NPC on the sites.
My daughter told me recently the early days of the visualization program at Texas A&M were very competitive (amongst each other). But now it is very collaborative. They only accept 80 incoming freshman and 20 change of major and transfer students into the Visualization degree program. So they have to apply and get accepted early since majors are first come first serve. First admitted students get their choice of major until the major fills. If they get accepted after the major is full, they are offered their second choice major. It is a small cohort of students within a very large university, one of the largest in the nation. But this visualization cohort of students take most of their classes and move through the program together. To give you an idea of the life of a visualization student-We visited recently and students are in the freshman studio every day. We visited on a Sunday afternoon and there were about a dozen students in the freshman studio working on their Visualization projects. She joined three clubs: Women in Animation, Siggraph (computer graphics club), and SWAMP (student filmmaking club). Siggraph even assigned her a mentor. She is also volunteering for the chillenium which is at Texas A&M each year and it is the largest Collegiate game jam. She co-designed the flyer for this years event. She is also volunteering for Aggie Con which is a student run convention (anime, scifi etc). I’m pretty impressed with the program and she is just a freshman! She’s only been there for 3 months. They also are required to do a semester away their junior year. It can be a full semester (spring or fall) study abroad to Germany or Italy or it can be a paid internship.
D20 is majoring in MechE with a minor in Digital Production Arts. She wants to combine the 2 to work in animation/live action special effects. She loves building, Computer Science, coding and drawing; her class this semester was “Technical Foundations of Digital Production I: The technical, conceptual, and algorithmic foundations of computer graphics. Covers the Unix operating system, scripting, C programming, and an interactive graphics API.”
I can’t remember which software/programs she used this semester, but I think she codes things in Python, Java, C & C++. I know she’s used Maya and others throughout her time. She’s also in film club which allows her to practice what she’s learned.
That sounds great! Where is she studying? I also love that it leaves her with a broad background that can move to other things if she wants. I don’t know if that’s needed or just my personal worry about what sounds like a narrow field (animation).
She’s at Clemson; they don’t have a DPA major, but they have a DPA Master’s program in Charleston. She often has joint classes with the Master’s students/profs. Not a school you think of for DPA; luckily it’s a major/minor offered at a lot of schools. She uses a lot of the engineering principals in her designs. She gets to draw, create and animate in MechE as well, she just uses Matlab and Solidworks instead of Maya and Adobe.