How the animation major at Drexel

dutallen
Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:30:31 +0000

The animation program here at Drexel is great! We have alumni working at Pixar, Dreamworks, Disney, ect. There’s a ton of resources, software, mo-cap studio, and labs at your disposal that many other schools that offer animation don’t have. A couple things: Pabajb, Gaming/Animation/Web Dev(they might have renamed the third major) majors start to split off during your sophomore year and not just your senior year. Your junior year gaming and animation majors take almost all different classes. Of course you can take some gaming classes as electives and gaming majors will probably be in your animation classes too.

A lot of people will be shocked how hard the program is though. The first couple quarters of your freshmen year will be a breeze. Also note that most freshmen digital media classes (other than 3D modeling in your third quarter) are taught by adjunct professors and not the full time professors. That first 3D modeling class will be your first slap in the face. I believe now they are teaching Maya (the 3D software) in earlier classes to lessen the burden. From then on, each quarter will usually get exponentially more difficult. Be prepared for many all nighters and long work days. 17 hour days are normal especially during weeks 8-11. And that is pretty much what your looking at in the industry too. I still remember when my professors kept saying be prepared for all these long hours working on your projects. I didn’t believe them at first and thought it was outrageous. The point I’m trying to convey here is that even when I was told numerous times of how intense it gets, I was still shocked once I got to that point.

I’m not trying to scare you because it is the so much fun. No other major will you be able to hang out with friends in the labs at 4am, working on your projects while having pizza and a movie playing on the projector. Personally, nothing has been more rewarding than working long and hard on a project and it coming out awesome. Just that moment when you make something that you are really proud of makes all those hours of hard work so worth it.

Here’s a few tips if you do decide to come here (which I think you should!):
Become bffs with some of the professors. They can be your biggest ally either with helping finding a job, letter of recommendations or just helping with a project. Even a lot of the adjunct are helpful too. I know a few of them are former students or are currently grad students. So they have first hand experience of what this program is all about.
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. It is very easy to fail if you put off your projects til that last minute. About 1/6th of my class dropped out or switched majors between their first and second year. And really, almost if not all of them could have been fine if they planned correctly.
Make friends with good students. Before you know it, you will find yourself looking for a group for your senior project. You will tell early on who’s really good and who are the slackers. Also, a lot of classes have group projects, and it’s always good to have a little group of friends that you know you work well with. You don’t want to be paired with a random person you really don’t know and find out that they are lazy.

Hopefully I didn’t scare you and made you want to apply instead. I can’t really comment on dorms/on campus housing. I’ve never lived in the dorms or on Drexel’s campus. I do have an apartment off campus and the general consensus is that it is cheaper to get an apartment off campus than stay on campus after your second year. I won’t really go into the financial aspects of tuition because it has been covered here a million times. But $15-20k scholarships are pretty much the norm. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me!