<p>I'm a senior from Texas and plan on going to a community college for a year before transferring to either UT Austin or UT Dallas and majoring in either Radio-Television-Film or Arts & Technology respectively. My end goal for both would be to work in either visual effects and composition for companies such as ILM (I'm already pretty good with After Effects) or working in level design/animation for video games. Which degree would be better to aim for and which school would be better for me? I've always liked UT Austin and before 10th grade it was where I had wanted to go (I messed up my grades starting in 10th grade though hence the reason I am going to community college first) but I have also begun to like the ATEC program at UTD. UTD also seems far easier to get into as a transfer student and UT Austin still seems to have a lot of competition due to it having a larger name. Is this worth it or should I just go to UTD? Which degree would focus more on actual animation/visual effects/level design and not just theory? I also hear UT Austin just got a game design program.</p>
<p>For animation this one.
[Department</a> of Visualization – Texas A&M University](<a href=“http://vvvvvv.viz.tamu.edu/]Department”>http://vvvvvv.viz.tamu.edu/)
[BS-Viz</a> curriculum : Department of Visualization – Texas A&M University](<a href=“http://vvvvvv.viz.tamu.edu/?page_id=197]BS-Viz”>http://vvvvvv.viz.tamu.edu/?page_id=197)
Though they usually work for Pixar. </p>
<p>This is UT Austin new program that you mentioned but they are going to concentrate not on animation but video games since Texas Film Commission included video games into film incentives HB 873 and called it entertainment industry incentives. I believe Texas is the only state that did it so video game industry started really booming.
[UT</a> Reveals New Program in Game Development | Radio-Television-Film](<a href=“http://rtf.utexas.edu/news/ut-reveals-new-program-game-development]UT”>http://rtf.utexas.edu/news/ut-reveals-new-program-game-development)</p>
<p>I have never heard about Arts & Technology at UT Dallas. Where are the graduates employed?</p>
<p>My main goal is to work in the video game industry so the UT Austin program seems good. I’m not really sure where exactly ATEC graduates get employed but I know there are a couple at Real FX, Janimatoin, Gearbox (which is where I would like to end up), iD Software, and Texas Instruments.</p>