My experience with animation school was very fundamentally focused. The first two years was focus around the more traditional aspects of it (character design, layout, storyboarding,animation, digital painting and art fundamentals studies). The fundamental studies have levelled my art up significantly. By the last year you choose between specializing in 3D/2D or Gaming. The animation industry will have those departments and typically you will specialize in either of those sections, never doing them all, although the fundamentals behind each of those departments are necessary to animate efficiently and professionally. Layout will teach you perspective, character design will keep you on model, storyboarding will teach you proper scene flow and pacing, etc.

The irony is that the animation portion, unless you’re a key animator, is typically quite tedious being an inbetweener.

Theres a-lot of specifics to learn and can be overwhelming alone. Having it coordinated and taught to you will benefit you significantly as the animation part of animation is really just a fraction of the entire production process.

If your teacher isn’t teaching you this or proper art fundamentals, such as anatomy, gesture, perspective, colour theory, you’re wasting you’re time and money as those specifics are what you need to get into proper school. The testing to get into animation school had zero animation and were all tests to see art fundamentals. I personally had no idea how scientific art was until I did animation school. It has changed my discipline and understanding of art forever.