Some advice for a senior who keeps changing her mind (engineering to illustration to animation)

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I started off my senior year without a single idea of what I wanted to do after highschool! I loved art and drawing but I never considered to make it my career because all my life my family told me I should keep it as a hobby. (even though a lot of them told me I was pretty talented)

I make really good grades and am actually 3rd of my class of 700 students so a lot of people recommended me becoming an engineer…
It didn’t seem like a horrible choice since I could be an engineer and still do art on the side…so I applied to UT Austin and UM Twin Cities for engineering.

However, I began really thinking and realized that I was kidding myself. I wanted to do art and I did more research and “surviving” on art wasn’t as impossible as my family made it seem -.-

I immediately applied to Ringling and RISD for illustration…I haven’t heard back from them yet but I feel I have a decent chance of getting into one of them.

And to make things worse I’m not sure if I’d prefer animation now. I could apply to SCAD…But a lot of deadlines have passed already so I’m kinda stuck until next year.

So I was wondering what I should do?
Should I go to Ringling/RISD if I get accepted to see if illustration is what I like more?
Or apply to SCAD for animation?
Or take a gap year to apply to schools I didn’t get a chance to apply to while working/maybe going to community?

Thank you for reading all this if you did! I know I wrote a lot sorry…I’m just really lost on what to do…

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I’m not an expert, but I would recommend going to whichever school you like most overall. Once you’re in, you can often transfer to another college; switch to the Arts and Sciences college wherever you go, and take a few years to decide what you really want to do.

If you are leaning towards one major or the other, you could still transfer to Arts and Sciences and then try to complete the requirements for the major through that college. That way, you can keep your options open.

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Question: Do you live and breathe art? The art students I know have no indecision about what they wanted. And dedicated art schools such as Ringling are pretty expensive to just “try it out”. What type of art do you like to do?

Thought about Industrial Design?

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@gouf78 I was always planning on pursing a career in art, whether it have been right out of college or a few years down the line when I was financially stable as an engineer. I just wasn’t sure if I was going to go to school for art, since I follow a few artists who never had any traditional schooling doing quite well for themselves.
For me it was just a question of going straight into art or finding a way to support myself before going into art. And i realized that there’s no point doing things the long way, so I’ve decided to have no more doubts at this point.

I’m interested in doing concept art, character designs, story boarding, and/or visual development. I figured Illustration was the way to go to prepare myself for this type of work, but I’m also interested in animation and I’ve seen a few artists majored in animation but still do lots of illustration.

And, yeah, going to ringling/risd would depend a lot on the type of aid I would get. i guess ‘trying it out’ was the wrong phrase to use.

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@honestpenguin‌

Hi, I just saw your post. I had a few comments;

First, congratulations on making the commitment to YOUR life. It is really difficult to do.

  1. many art schools want you to attend “their” program and will not take art classes from elsewhere. They might, however, take your liberal arts courses - you would save a lot of money if you first look into those colleges, see what they say about transfer courses, then see if it makes sense to go to community college for a year. You would get your liberal arts courses out of the way (you most likely have a lot of AP credits anyway) and you could spend all of your art college time studying art.

  2. You could use the year to develop your portfolio - take a look at the portfolios that students submit to the various colleges - there are some amazing ones for CalArts/Ringling, etc. You could use your time to attend figure drawing classes, and get a membership to a local zoo, and draw for hours there. Many schools which offer top character design/storyboarding/illustration majors want to see drawing from observation/life. Every school also has their own portfolio guideline.

Accepted CalArts Sketchbooks (required part of the portfolio):
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=accepted+calarts+sketchbook

Top portfolios tend to be awarded the lion’s share of the merit aid. If you have a top portfolio, great GPA/SAT, you are golden.

  1. I highly recommend that you try the pre-college program at Ringling. It will give you a taste of two different “majors.” You could try both 3D animation and illustration, to see what you like.

Last, I was a top high school student, went to a 4 year liberal arts college (Hamilton), took a few years, then went back for another 3 undergraduate years in art school. I am glad that I did both, but I always wonder what opportunities I would have had if I had if I had started sooner. Just saying.

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@honestpenguin were you accepted into CSE?

I’d put UMTC Engineering and RISD on about the same effort level but of course using different skills. Foundation year at RISD (or at any art school, for that matter) is pretty grueling with about 30 hours of studio and classroom time per week. But CSE is no walk in the park either and you absolutely have to get good grades to be admitted to the competitive engineering program.

The advantage of RISD is that you really don’t have to worry about declaring your major till March of your freshman year. So you will have 1st semester plus Wintersession to immerse yourself in art and design principles and figure out what you really want to do: ID? Architecture? Animation? They are ALL top notch programs at RISD.

I don’t mean to single out RISD or CSE - it’s just that I totally get your issue. My D could have been an engineer (and we encouraged her to consider CSE) but is opting for graphic design at an art/design school with RISD as her #1 choice. She is now in B/C calculus and has found over the past year that two of her GD instructors - one at RISD precollege and other at MCAD - took B/C calculus. Design does appeal to mathematical minds. Furthermore, we’ve taken a look at the math SAT/ACT scores of RISD and they are about 710/31 at the 75th percentile (significantly higher than at many other art and design schools). So the artists/designers at RISD are actually academically strong enough to handle stuff like engineering.

Hope this helps give you a bit of perspective as you await your decision.

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@honestpenguin, another possibility for you of course is to go the mathematical/engineering route during your undergrad years (perhaps with a double major or a minor in art) and then attend art/design school for your MFA. While you won’t get the intense studio experience of a professional art/design institution during your undergrad years, you definitely will be able to keep up your skills and pursue your creative instincts while also challenging yourself with something highly mathematical and analytical. In other words, you truly will be using both sides of your brain!

Perhaps you’ll even end up like John Maeda (you can google or wiki him - an extraordinary individual).

Good luck! Sounds like you’ll have some wonderful opportunities.

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@honestpenguin Mamelot does make some sense. There is more and more a marriage between technology and the arts. Carnegie Mellon is a great example. They have a real cross-discipline philosophy; http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/society/2012/summer/leading-design-arts-tech.shtml

This is a great video also about the interplay of technology and the arts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HLbXRYnpnE

Of course, if what you really love is creating illustrations, go to a good school and learn it well. You will get better merit if you have a great portfolio.

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@MazeArtCrew‌
I have been considering taking a year at a community college just to have more time to work on art/get better and then transferring to a school the next year but I’m just worried on how the transfer process works (like do I start as a freshman at the school with some prior college credit? and would I have to contact my school for transcripts again? but I guess I just need to do more research If I decide to do this haha)
it depends a lot on if I get accepted AND get any aid from RISD or Ringling…because it’s insane for me to try and afford the full tuition at either schools so I may be taking that year to build up my portfolio even if I do get accepted
Thanks so much for your time and advice! :smiley:

And @Mamelot‌
I was thinking about doing both at some point; doing engineering first and then going to school again for illustration/animation. But i’d rather go straight and do something I’d prefer more right from the start after a lot of thought. One of the reasons I hope I get accepted to RISD is that it may give me some more time to think about illustration vs animation, so I’m crossing my fingers.
Thanks for all the information and I appreciate all your help! :smile:

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Have you looked into Industrial Design Engineering? It seems like a great marriage of art and science.

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@honestpenguin “I’m just worried on how the transfer process works (like do I start as a freshman at the school with some prior college credit? and would I have to contact my school for transcripts again? but I guess I just need to do more research If I decide to do this haha)”

You are correct, waiting a year would mean an entirely new application to college - if you want to go to community college first, you need to contact each school you intend to transfer to in order to see how transfers of credit happen. Art courses will most likely NOT transfer. Before you sign up for classes at a community college, I’d run the list by a counselor at the colleges that you would like to transfer into. Think carefully about if you want to use one of your 4 years of federal financial aid at the community college - it may still take you 4 years to graduate at whichever school you matriculate into, and the aid may be appreciated more at the school you transfer to.

FWIW, Ringling does not give much merit - the top applicant into each major receives the Presidential Scholarship, which is $20,000 or $25,000 - the COA is close to $60,000. The Dean’s Scholarship, also very selective, gives $10,000. From what I have heard, they don’t give out much to help meet need either - even though I am still hoping they will for my D! RISD is also not known for giving much aid. LCAD (Laguna College of Art and Design) is more affordable, and the art out of there looks great. They also give some nice merit scholarships. RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) MAY be a good fit - they have a good art program, and also give good merit. I strongly suggest that you look at what they have to offer:

Here is a link to their College of Imaging Arts and Sciences
https://www.rit.edu/overview/cias

Here are the pages for their scholarships (need and merit based):

https://www.rit.edu/emcs/financialaid/table_merit.html
https://www.rit.edu/emcs/financialaid/table_need.html

While for most art schools, I would strongly consider community college to take some of the liberal arts requirements (to save some $) If you went to RIT, you might want to just develop your portfolio, and not go to community college - with your grades and most likely high SAT, you could receive between $10,000 and $16,000 for merit, then receive up to $16,000 for additional need. They also have transfer scholarships. Another bonus for RIT, is that you could minor in an engineering field if you wanted - there are a lot of creative people there.

Their film and animation major is HIGHLY competitive - that particular major’s admission to the program is based on grades/SAT, and not portfolio, however they recommend you submit a portfolio as well, if a tie needs to be broken. Other majors in the art school do require a portfolio. If you chose the film/animation major, you would do both film and animation your freshman year, then specialize your sophomore year in either film or animation. It is hard to transfer into the program - it is a 4 year program in total.

The graduates of RIT animation are recruited as well:
https://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=50906

Their Viewbook:
https://www.rit.edu/upub/pdfs/Viewbook-Imaging_Arts_and_Sciences.pdf

You can see that they are listed with other art schools under “Pixar’s Recruiting Page”
http://aimeemajor.com/anim/pixarcollege.html

That list is compiled by an independent animator, and RIT is one of 19 colleges listed under:
“Schools for Aspiring Character Animators”

If you were my D, I’d recommend 1) waiting to see if you receive some amazing scholarship this year; if you didn’t, then 2) I’d tell you to work on your portfolio, go take figure drawing classes (many community art programs have weekly figure drawing), maybe sign up for Lynda.com and learn some Maya basics (for 3D animation, if you want to study 3D animation), see if you have a local Atelier, study portfolios of accepted students at CalArts (your choice of illustration and animation make me think that CalArts is a better choice for you than Ringling, unless you want to learn 3D animation.) Get a part time job if you need to fund the classes. There is even an “Animation Portfolio Development Workshop” that you can take online via CalArts: https://calarts.edu/academics/extended-studies/online-course

  1. Next year, apply to CalArts (2D animation), Laguna Collage of Art and Design (LCAD), RIT, again to Ringling (3D animation - maybe with an amazing portfolio, get that top award - HIGHLY competitive, but they also take into account grades, as well as art, in awarding this.)

Last, kudos to you for being willing to wait a year. It could be a very fruitful year to develop more skills and to help fund your education (better portfolio, better merit). You could be setting yourself up to have MUCH lower debt when you graduate, with much higher prospects. (Without debt, you have many more choices of where you want to go.)

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@MazeArtCrew‌
Thank you so much for such a detailed response (and sorry for the late reply)!
As of now I’m still debating community college or taking a gap year, but whatever I decide on I’ll be spend a majority of my time building up my portfolio.
I appreciate all the help!!