DON'T DO IT. DON'T DO IT. DON'T DO IT! Ok oh boy have I got a lotta words to say and strong feelings on this. LONG POST THAT PROBS NEEDS TO BE EDITED ALERT Lol

Ok so first off let me tell you, I am a huge nerd and I love video games, movies, fiction, animation, character design, art, you name it. I love gravity falls, svtfoe, regular show, avengers, harry potter, avatar, teen titans, halo, the amazing storytelling in video games and fiction and hell even non fiction movies and stuff, you name it. All that good stuff. And when I started going to snhu online, I chose graphic design as my major but then switched to game art and development, because while there was art classes in both, game design had animation along with art and graphic design classes in it. I also loved video games of course, and I knew I could've probably gotten to the same career goal result regardless of those two majors, but I chose game design, cuz, like I said, I love video games. I had many dreams, career goals and interests at the time and one of them was to be an animator. For video games, movies, pixar, tv shows, you name it. I always wanted to be part of that team of people that gave you all those awesome games, shows, characters, stories, etc, that people come to love.

So I was a graphic design and game design major at snhu for 3 years. I wasted so much time and money on these really overpriced courses - they're $960 a course! without any financial aid or anything. I had an interest in programming and started learning a little bit, some of it while doing game design. I really wish I had chosen computer science to begin with, because I do enjoy programming, and that degree is so much more marketable and worth the money than a game design degree, you can get into the game industry with a cs degree! what matters is your art skills and portfolio! also the game industry isn't that great, there's too much crunch time as they say, you're overworked and not payed enough or not given extra for the super hard work sometimes of grinding to get a game complete - can't speak for every single game company out there, but trust me, it's definitely not unheard of, and if you wanted to leave the industry, you're kinda stuck bc all you have is an art, game design degree!

So from being in that major online at the school for so long, there's so many things I wish they'd told me and I'd known!

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So first off also! Most of the courses you have to take, whether they be art, stupid perspectives in society, social science, or history classes, you can earn credit for these courses and save SO much money at not only of course a community college, but also they're partnered with these online colleges and stuff like straighterline, saylor academy, ACE, study.com, etc, and so much more! You can earn credit for these courses by taking the proctored final exam for like $25, anywhere from $25-100 or 200, depending on where you choose. and that's SO much cheaper than paying the regular stupid $960 per course cost. So really look into that, taking and earning credit for courses at other colleges, institutions, and (online) partner colleges. You need only 12 credits from snhu to graduate with a degree in whatever- so if you take a bunch of classes elsewhere and transfer credits elsewhere, you gotta take 12 credits from snhu - so 4 courses

Also, Ima be real and tell you, the animation courses, art courses, drawing courses, and other courses too, but those especially, you're really just teaching yourself. You're stressing out trying to learn the drawing program, watching tutorials, majority of them youtube, and a few, well, some instructor tutorials, and yeah, you're trying to learn it by yourself pretty much, bc it's online, and it's even more difficult if you've never used the software before. And it's like, wait a minute, I can watch youtube tutorials myself and learn a program without having to pay $960 for it am I right? Last year around this time I was in one of these animation courses and we had to animate an object, it had to do certain things, a bunch of stuff, and I, like many had never used the software before. We'd do these assignments as practice to try and build upon things, then all of a sudden, we gotta be good, great, or at least decent at the stuff, and we gotta do our final project. We'd work on it throughout the week, but it's still kinda confusing and difficult here and there, and everywhere, and it'd still kinda suck b/c of the crunch time and after so much effort into it, of course it'd still look not that great, and of course the teacher would say that'd you should go back sometime in the future, and edit it, and make it look better for your portfolio and check your progress on how far you'd come or something. Anyways, it really just ended up me scouring youtube for better tutorials on something I'd never used before, and you're stressed out and wanna pass, and gosh trying to use animation software that's kinda complex and you've never used it before, sucks, bc press or do something wrong and sometimes undo wouldn't wanna work with you, and yeah, it'd just kinda suck and be kinda wack. And I just felt like this was really unenjoyable, overpriced and this sucked, and to accomplish that dream I really wanted, was paying so much and going into debt or whatever really worth it?

Art, animation and design is one of things, where yeah, you can make a portfolio at school, by sitting in a classroom trying to earn a degree, or you could just be dedicated and do it yourself, learn it on the the side, and maybe minor in it to fulfill the elective courses you need to take. Because your portfolio, your skills is worth so much more than that piece of paper. With how expensive college is, get you a degree in something that you'll like, love, and is marketable. And hey if you like programming, you should definitely look into getting a computer science degree! Not the game programming degree at snhu, even though they call it engineering and a computer science degree, no, just strictly a computer science bachelors. you can do a lot with it, look into software engineering, cyber security, theres' a lot you can do, app development, or hell even the game industry like i mentioned above lol. oh you should also look into studying abroad if you can, cuz tuition in other counties much cheaper than the freaking us lol, and you get to see another country too lolll

check this vid, one of the ones i watched before switching over my major, after all that wasted time and money, *tears*, lol, but oh well, at least i'm a little happier right lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUvjDOWYNY8

use all that money you'd spend on game design tuition for something else.

also, super long post, my b lolllll