<p>My son has been accepted into Texas A&M's Visualization Arts program and the University of Texas at Dallas' Arts and Technology program. We would appreciate any insight anyone has into the two academic programs and the advantages/disadvantages of one vs the other. We especially welcome comments on the specifics of the two programs and future employments opportunities granted by graduation from one vs. another, as well as university life. In general, we are very familiar with Texas A&M and not so much with UTD. Most important to my son is the program, not the school. He is very smart (34 ACT), very focused on working for a movie or game design studio, and very much a computer geek (awkward, anxious, not very social). Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>Our daughter has chosen the Visualization program at A&M because it was highly recommended by her instructors at Carnegie Mellon University. She was determined to attend Carnegie Mellon, but their ETC (which she absolutely LOVED during her attendance at the National High School Game Academy) is a graduate program. Therefore, while discussing her options with the instructors, they mentioned that “one of the top 3 undergrad programs in the country is in your backyard (referring to Texas A&M – other 2 they mentioned were Univ of Southern California and MIT).” That made her decision easy. She was offered a full ride to UTD, and liked the emerging program at UT Austin (mostly because it is spear headed by an executive from Blizzard Entertainment), but appreciated the reputation and internship opportunities available from A&M, as well as the amazing faculty that she met during their Youth Adventure Program where she got a “taste” of the Visualization program and their labs/facilities. I hope this helps, as I know this is a tough decision, but rest assured, he can’t go wrong with either of these wonderful programs.</p>