When being in college holds me back(?)

College Life
1

<p>Hello everyone, </p>

<p>I'm new to this forum and I would really like some input on this dilemma. I know there are already similar threads here but just hear me out. </p>

<p>I am in 2nd year of my 3-year Diploma course, majoring in Digital Animation in Malaysia. I've always wanted to be an animator, and I know this is the career that I'm aiming for in my life. I love drawing and I love story-telling. </p>

<p>The problem I have with this college is not that I'm losing interest in the animation field but that I do not find the classes to be helpful to me. I feel that it focuses too much on the technical side, gives projects with such tight deadlines and depends too much on the lecturer's approval for anything genuine to be produced. To me, I feel like this sort of educational system would turn me into someone's tech employee whether I want to or not. </p>

<p>I don't want to work this hard to be somebody else's labor worker. I wanna be my own creative director and have some autonomy in my work. I realized this when I was looking through my portfolio and I saw how all of the works I'm proud of are the projects I started of on my own, and none of that from the college I'm in. </p>

<p>Everyday, I feel myself hating college more and more. My friends are lovely there and I love them. I just can't stand the educational system there. I feel like its a waste of time. But I don't know what to do.</p>

<p>Help? Please?</p>

2

<p>The chances of you being able to come straight-out of college and become the leader of an animation project or an entire film and be able to give your own timeline, is nil.</p>

<p>That is not to say you can never get to that point, but first you’ll need to make connections in the business and find someone to fund your project. Until you get to that point, you will be doing animation for other people and there will be deadlines. Even if college is a lot more strict about these things than any of your jobs, college, if its doing its job, must prepare you for whatever animation you might need to do and whatever reasonable deadlines are for the projects. I think the ability to animate to someone else’s tastes will make you a better animator, and knowing whats the most important and whats less important when trying to hit deadlines, will make you a better employee.</p>

<p>I wish you good luck with your own projects, keep doing them, they let you explore your creativity, it will show people you like the field enough to go beyond your course work, but the diploma is what will tell them that you have attained some level of technical skill and that you have a strong work ethic.</p>

3

<p>Lidiya, sure. I think you’re being overly idealistic, though. The educational system may suck, but there are hoops we have to jump through to get to somewhere in our lives. </p>

<p>What are you going to do if you don’t have this diploma and no one takes you seriously?</p>

4

<p>CaptainSparkles, I appreciate your advice but for your first comment I must say this: I am ambitious, not stupid. Did I ever think I’ll be ruling the animation industry within my own timeframe? Of course not. That’s not even close to what I want to do now. </p>

<p>What I’m concerned with right now is developing myself aesthetically and technically to my greatest potential so that I could be in the ideal position of my career in the future. This is what I feel the college is holding me back on. </p>

<p>Its too much on submitting the assignments on time, too much of getting things right and too much of taking orders from the higher ups.
Its focusing too much on being a good employee instead of cultivating the idea that people like me can be designers or artists. Its the same loop that I’m in since elementary school.
Don’t think, just follow what teachers/lecturers/boss tells you too. How can people stand to be in this position? Doesn’t anyone ever think they could be better than this?</p>

<p>I know the difference between someone whose working their way up to being an entrepreneur and someone whose just happy taking people’s orders. And there’s a huge difference to the way they approach their work. I’ve collaborated with people who owned their own studios. I’m an active volunteer in one of my country’s growing design organization. </p>

<p>On top of that, I part-time in a network marketing company. Yes, CaptainSparkles, I network. I am growing my business relationships alongside completing my piles and piles of assignments every week. I go to college, I volunteer, and I work. I would just rather do the last 2 things than college because it doesn’t seem to be preparing me for anything big other than landing a job which, in this industry, wouldn’t be a secure one anyways. </p>

<p>Call me a lunatic, but I don’t want a job. I want a vocation. I want to control what I earn doing what I love. I am realistic enough to know that no matter how high I climb up the career ladder, there will always be deadlines for me to follow(which is good) and regulations I need to comply with. </p>

<p>The problem I have with this college is not the amount of work it gives us (that, I can handle) but the way this work is given to us. Every student here are motivated to complete their work through fear. Fear that if we don’t complete one work, we fail, we are deferred a semester, that we are outcast-ed by our peers, that we are hated by our lecturers for being a burden. Fear is the primary motivation in our college and I have a feeling that it is so in the working world too. What happened to doing something because we love doing it?</p>

<p>P.S.
I am so sorry for the long post. :I</p>

5

<p>*Its too much on submitting the assignments on time, too much of getting things right and too much of taking orders from the higher ups. *</p>

<p>This is what the work world is about. Your creativity means nothing if you cannot deliver a project on time, and most industries that employ animators operate on deadlines. Your talent doesn’t matter if you cannot follow directions and get the vision that your employer wants right. And you will always have to take orders from higher ups. Even if you run your own business, you will have to take direction from your clients.</p>

<p>You are looking at the world from too black and white a perspective, IMO. Working for someone else as an employee doesn’t mean that you can’t be a designer or artist, or that you lack creativity. Different people have different strengths. Some people are great artists but are not good at the marketing or business aspects of running an animation firm, so they work for someone else who can handle that so they can focus on just animating.</p>

<p>It’s also hard to control what you earn when you are fresh and new. Everyone has to start somewhere, and few people can control their own income in any meaningful sense right out of the door.</p>

6

<p>Interesting…</p>

<p>I understand your thoughts on fear and education. It seems like you’ve been thinking about this for a while now and maybe it keeps you up some nights.</p>

<p>Einstein once said: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”</p>

<p>What – specifically – would you want to be doing if you know and don’t mind me asking?</p>