design school or self-taught
Out of context: Reply #52
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- Chadwick0
Like someone else said, go to school for anything but learning the software.
I have a BFA in New Media which is basically everything media. I can say that the classes that were most worth the time and money were ones where we were taught principals, method, hands on theory and free or experimental projects. The classes I benefited from most were fine art, illustration and drawing, some studio lighting and typography.
There were plenty of classes that were based around learning the technical side of software such as Photoshop or Quark or Dreamweaver. Not only were these classes a waste of time and money, but you may as well just go to a free product demo or expo and get more out of it from a certified rep. The most frustrating thing was the person or two in each class who couldn't grasp anything which would hold up the sessions and make them even worse. image a class devoted to using a contextual menu or how to use shortcuts key combos.
Another benefit from th school is how to manage work flow, distribute your time on projects, hand things in on time, etc. At my school we had a ridiculous amount of homework in each class and if it wasn't handed in on time the following session, you could risk getting removed from that class and losing your credits. This is very similar to real life projects. When you have multiple clients and lots of work on the table, you have to get it done well and on schedule and school can sort of serve as a boot camp for dealing with these types of things. I can say it helped me in that capacity and I'm sure of that.