pasithea | It's that time again...

*sigh* :/

There is nothing that makes me more depressed than looking through the catalog of classes and knowing how few I can take because of my work schedule. I hunger and am slowly starved. I'm filled with a silent hate towards family and loved ones. Resenting that I cannot ever be just a student. No one has ever supported me, really. My parents paid for my brother's six years at university but they kept me out of gifted classes and prevented me from skipping grades because it would be 'bad for my social development'. They only grudgingly sent me to university, and only the cheapest one around. I could only take classes that would 'get a god paying job' at a school that has a poor program for the field I was designated. What marginal support I got from my parents ended when I came out to them. My brother went to school and studied music. When my parents die, they'll probably leave everything to him. I'll never have the sort of support required to let me be a real student.

I carry a 3.998 GPA, the only B I've ever got was in a painting class... for being tardy once too often after working late... I've taken 15 and more hours in a quarter while working full time and done well in school. Work has been the issue. I 'need to be available to work overtime on demand'.

I feel like I'm suffocating, drowning, starving. I need school and challenges and provoking thoughts. *sigh* I know it's all a fantasy. For now I must take the few classes that fit my available time and resolve what schedule conflicts I can. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Here's what fits in my current schedule and doesn't have pre-req issues. :/ Next quarter, more math and language classes, I think. This quarter art and music to get me back into the swing after three quarters of minimal classes (because of work).

Class	DOY	Hrs	Cred	Comments
Storyboarding for Animation	W	6:30P-10:10P	3	I need to take this class.
Remote Sound Mixing	Th	6:15P-11:55P	4	Mixing for TV/Radio. Sounds really interesting but conflicts with Design
Sound for Animation	Tu	12:30P-4:10P	3	Probably fun and useful.
Design	Tu/Th	6:30P-9:10P	3	Taken before at another school but didn't feel the course there was very good. Feels important to the type of artwork I'd like to do.
Intro to Music	M	6:00P-9:40P	4	Guided exploration of music. I keep whining about this lack in my life. Maybe this is a solution.
Creative Writing	M	3:45-5:25	4	This class would probably be a lot of work. Timewise, fits nicely with music class.

So.. There is is. Witht his weird work schedule I could theorhetically take ~18 hours of classes, in theory, without work conflicts. I had a bad experience with creative writing in highschool, and I'm not sure the music class is really what I need. Probably more sensible to skip those. On the other hand, it might be fun to see if I could pull 18 credit hours and work full time and come out all A's and looking good at work. My previous high has been 15 credit hours. Probably can't afford it though. I should skip the monday classes.

So that leaves one question. Design or sound mixing? Both useful, both interesting both I'll do well in. Sound mixing runs awful late. OTOH, Sound mixing matches well with the sound for animation class. :/

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IMHO you can teach yourself everything you need to know about sound, but only by spending a little money & a whole lot lot lot of time on it experimenting. If you've never taken a sound course, you'd be doing yourself a favor by taking one. You don't want your animations to sound like this, now do you?

Actually, renting studio time with their professional microphones and such is a lot less expensive than trying to own the equipment and the space to do it yourself. Much, much less. I think most people just don't think of that option.

Hmmm, maybe, but the price of high quality mics and preamps has plummeted in the last 10 years, and software has replaced almost every other part of the chain. You can get a >real< mic for like $75 and a usable preamp for $40. Studio time tends to be $15/hour and up for a "real" studio.

I'd really only recommend going that route if you're working on a project where you're in a hurry, have $$$, and aren't particularly interested in hands-on learning (the studio techs tend to take the reins in those places, not run them as classrooms). My guitarist works at a recording studio, and they make a lot of money off people who enter the studio not knowing >exactly< what they want.

I agree, you can get a decent setup at home and do some quality stuff. Still, the reason I got out of doing audio myself (I had a fair deal of good, mid-range mics and digital recording equipment) is that I realized I don't use it too often, and if I wanted proper acoustics in a room, I'd have to spend vastly more money than I wanted. It's just a matter of use (maybe a couple times a year) vs. cost of owning/maintenance. :) Though yah, I'm probably rare in that respect.

I guess it can be justified if there's a significant project or goal... like the CD my group just finished (the one Peggy did the cover art for). On the other hand, I don't have ideal acoustics and that never stopped me from getting a massive, professional sound. I certainly didn't spend as much on foam padding as I did on microphones, and on the few songs where I used live drums, I wasn't holding out for perfect acoustics. Then again, I also wasn't mic'ing the room like some people do. Instead I just spent three times as long on mixing!

Of course, NONE of that has anything to do with the minimal equipment, baffling, and mixing technique you need to catch good dialogue for animation soundtrack work. (I should show you the pictures I took of the 'sound room' at Spümco from when Peg was working there. Their sound work is fine, but their setup is practically a joke.) If you can record clean dialogue, the rest of cartoon sound work is really more about editing than anything, and the best way to learn editing is by doing.

Design is good for learning how to do compositions. Definitely would help with layouts and such. If you were to ask me, I'd take that one before sound mixing, as the latter is pretty easy to pick up to do sufficiently, a class would just help polish it. The storyboard class was fun when I took it a few years back.

As far as school, I know the feeling. I was in the same conundrum a few years back when working at NetApp. Many of the key courses I needed to take towards a degree were smack dab in the middle of the day. Thankfully, they laid me off. (Well, technically I was let go because I became apathetic and came in late often, like two or three hours late. On the books I was laid off because I had been there over three years and they liked me.) After some dilly-dallying, I figured I wouldn't get another full time tech job, instead opting for full-time student. Yes, it's tight. Thankfully, there's student grants and loans to help.

Have you tried for those? I know you have a steady income, but there are still loan options as well as the BOGG for community colleges. Pays your entire tuition costs, and may be applicable.

Anyway, in my case I weighed my options, and focusing on being a full-time animator outweighed being a full-time network engineer. It seems you enjoy your current job, so your decision is a bit more difficult in balancing your interests.

You wouldn't be the person you are today if not for the experiences you have had. :) Looking back at the atmosphere you endured, would you have been happy there with the money to go to school?

Also, with a GPA like that, you ought to look into seeing if there are any local chapters of PHI THETA KAPPA or a simular organization in your area...

Yours,
Artist

Hee. I'm already Phi Theta Kappa, international honors society, and on the national dean's list. Mostly this results in me getting lots of spam-mail. :)

They have some pretty hefty scholarships... :)

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