I have no idea about anything College wise, anybody care to help?

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projecteightysix

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Hey guys,
I've taken two years off and now I feel like I should goto college.
First off, I was homeschooled, so I have pretty much no idea anything about college, terms and stuf. My family is retarded and don't want to help me with it.

Anyways, I am interested in something to do with film, editing and actual cinematography. Also I'd like to do something with design, like photoshop stuff. Is there like a specific term for that? Like would it be a media major or something like that?

That's the main question. Another question is, where would a good college be for stuff like that? I know theres a ton of small community colleges to do stuff like that, but I would rather it be a university or something like that.

Thanks in advance.
 
Graphic Design is offered at some places. That involves some photoshop...

Advertising or Public Relations covers a wide variety of stuff like that plus practically every company needs both of these, however theres obviously a lot a competition so you had better catch on quick or be naturally talented to begin with. It'd be the dreaded communications major.
 
Look into Digital Media or something along those lines. Although it may not have as much film work as an actual film major, it does have editing and design and all that.

At my school the Digital Media and Film schools are combined so film/dm students share some classes. It's somewhat of a rip off though because I'm a DM major and I have to take 4 film classes but film majors only have to take 1 DM class.
 
You wanna go for a Multimedia degree. It's basically the "jack of all trades" type of thing. You do graphic design, 3d, photoshop, film, etc. Once you take some of those class and figure out what you really like to do, switch to the specific degree that you wanna specialize in.

Take your GenEd courses now at Community College. It will save you an *ASSTON* of money.

Oh, one other bit of advice.

Stay the hell away from places that advertise on TV. I'm a student at ITT Tech and I really got shafted in my Associate's Multimedia Program. My Digital Entertainment and Game Design teacher though really knows what he's doing, and we just ignore the administration. I got lucky.

Places like those boil down to how lucky you are with a teacher, where as the major universities are far stricter about the staff and how much you'll get out of the class.
 
UCSB film studies, lots of freedom, lots of hands on experience if you want, amazing work hard/play hard atmosphere. There's also an interesting MAT (media art technology program there)
*disclaimer, I went to UCSB film studies and loved every minute of it.
You can also design an interdisciplinary degree to get exactly what you want.
 
Communication Design with an option in Media Arts sounds like what you want, but be careful because it is a form of an art degree. As we all know art degrees are mostly useless.
 
Since I assume you're going to be paying, check out the state schools, most states have at least one that's pretty good. And you should be able to find a program that will do what you want. Browse websites looking at the faculty and send them an email with questions (make sure you proofread it and it looks professional).

But state schools will give a great start and save tons of money.
 
I highly recommend Orlando. Start at Valencia or Seminole Community College and take Digital Media and basic Design classes in the Art department.

Or come straight here where I'm at. University of Central Florida in Orlando. They expect you to know the basics of programs like photoshop and dreamweaver but they do teach other cool software. They let you concentrate in whatever you want. Say you wanted to focus in video editing. You would take the video editing course that teaches you Final Cut Pro and the audio editing course Digtal Audio. Then as a junior and senior you can take your project, production, and directed research with the professor that specializes in video editing.

I suggest going to www.dm.ucf.edu and www.digitalbooktalk.com

The first is our schools website and the latter are some video projects our students have done.

Good luck
 
Call up a few of the community colleges around you and ask if they have free guidance counseling (most of them do around where I live). They will give you an aptitude test and a consultation. When you sit down with the counselor you can describe exactly what you want to do and he or she will be able to help you put it in the correct terms. You really don't want to graudate and then find out that there was a better major for you. Also, if I had to do my undergraduate over again I would have taken a semester or two at the community college first and gotten silly requirements out of the way (like english 101). If you go straight for the university, then try to take easy classes your first semester so you can get an idea of how it all works. I'm half way through my second graduate degree now and it just keeps getting easier, which is funny because I almost didn't pass my first undergraduate semester all those years ago.
 
I would also like to stress the idea of getting your gen-eds out of the way at a community college. I'm graduating from my CC in a week, and saved a ton of money this way. I'm transferring to Penn State in the fall to finish up my Bachelor's.
 
I agree with attending a community college first, especially since you were homeschooled. It gives you a sense of the college community. It doesn't really matter what your major is for at least the first year and a half, as you'll be taking general education courses anyway. The good news is, whenever I've had homeschooled students in my courses, I've found them to be far better prepared and disciplined than those in the standard school system.

On a side note, you need to fill out financial aid forms for the coming year, and most have already had their time limits, so you might not get much for next year, but that's why a community college is good. You'll probably have to take some English, math, foreign language, psych, speech, sociology courses the first year.
 
Two years off... yikes.. community college for sure, who knows if college is even for you at this point. Coming from your environment I'm sure that will be a rather large culture shock for you. You can knock out your required courses as someone else said, just make sure the credits transfer.

You're probably not going to want to live in the dorms anyway, since you'll be older than everyone else and they'll probably be constantly asking you to buy alcohol for them. I know that's what my friends and I usually did to people that were older than us my first 2 years of school.
 
[quote name='Zenithian Legend']You're probably not going to want to live in the dorms anyway, since you'll be older than everyone else and they'll probably be constantly asking you to buy alcohol for them. I know that's what my friends and I usually did to people that were older than us my first 2 years of school.[/quote]

Don't let that deter you. I lived in a mostly freshman dorm with a bunch of friends of mine for nearly 5 years. We were older and used to get asked to make beer runs. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn't, but we always charged a "fee". A few beers off the top of anything purchased.

It worked pretty well...at least until they found someone else, which was what we wanted in the first place.

I agree with the above comments on community college. Take a couple of years there to save the money. I also agree with the culture shock of going from home school to a university...don't let "life" get to you too much.

TBW
 
you should also fill out a fafsa

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

and allow me to put in another recommendation for a Junior College to get your general education out of the way. in my experience, the instructors at a JC tend to have more time to interract with their students, and grow real relationships, compared to a university, where you interract with the TA more than the professor.
 
Definitely don't be scared about the time you've taken off. It sucks, I know first-hand, but if you work your ass off and form some connections you'll be fine. I took nearly 3 years off after finishing up my first 2 years at community college, so I am a lot older than all of the students in my classes (I'll be 25 in a couple of months). But at the same time, I was able to really get my shit together while I took that time off, and now things are looking pretty good for me as far as what will be open to me after college. Even now, I'm lucky and I intern at a hedge fund, so life is good. Just make sure you work hard and hopefully you've done some type of learning in those two years you were away from school! And yeah, 2 years at community college will save you a TON, and look for scholarships when you are ready to jump to a 4-year school.
 
I'm currently attending a community college myself. Going for an associates degree in network engineering. I'm going to see how that goes when I get the degree. Depending on how I feel, I'll probably go towards a bachelors at a University.

Community College is an excellent and cheap way to get you started. I agree with everybody in here. The big college snobs may look down on you at a CC, but at least you are giving it a shot and that's what counts. I hated school and I was out for 4 years until I decided to go to college. Surprisingly I really enjoy it and I'm happier than ever.

Good luck.
 
[quote name='TheBlueWizard']Don't let that deter you. I lived in a mostly freshman dorm with a bunch of friends of mine for nearly 5 years. We were older and used to get asked to make beer runs. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn't, but we always charged a "fee". A few beers off the top of anything purchased.

It worked pretty well...at least until they found someone else, which was what we wanted in the first place.

I agree with the above comments on community college. Take a couple of years there to save the money. I also agree with the culture shock of going from home school to a university...don't let "life" get to you too much.

TBW[/quote]

Keep in mind you had friends with you the whole way. There's a part of me that almost wishes I had spent another 2 years in the dorms, but that just wasn't meant to be I suppose.

Anyway, there's a lot of other variables at play here too, such as where you're thinking of going to college. If you're thinking about commuting, going to an out-of-state school, etc.

Make sure you do that fafsa though, that's the best advice all topic.
 
I lived in an apartment and in the "Greek" system. My only advice check out the cost of living aorund campus to find the best deal. Sometimes university dorms are not worth the hassle
 
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