Met a student tonight

[timwilky]

Well I was out for a few scoops and I ended up talking to a young lady who tells me she is at uni.

Oh were? asks I. Bolton WTF!!!, where did that come from.!! Bolton has a uni??

So what are you doing?. Illustration and animation. Double WTF. We the tax payer are subsidising kids to scribble and play with playdoh.

No don't get me wrong. I don't blame the kid for doing an available course. But I ask you. Why should somebody do a physics or mathematics degree when you can get an degree in animation and illustration.

On the subject of degrees. I was reading on this very forum about a Motorcycle Engineering degree. Sceptical at the sound. I investigated a little deeper. Damm i wish that sort of course was available when I did mine.

I now understand that disciplines have broken into specialism. However, I would have thought that the specialisms should be the meat on basic Mech Eng degrees that makes up your MSc/PHD etc.

[G]

It amazes me some of the rubbish degrees that you can do now days.

Illustrations and Animation isnt the stupidest I have heard of thats for sure.

I guess you wouldn't be calling it stupid when your an Animation Designer/Engineer at Pixar/ Industrial Light & Magic or some other Hollywood studio paying you roughly 30 million dollars an hour.

Surely the degree on David Beckham is worse?

The degrees now are alot more specialist and its a good thing if its relevant but unfortunately most degrees aren't really in line with the real world

Originally Posted by timwilky

No don't get me wrong. I don't blame the kid for doing an available course. But I ask you. Why should somebody do a physics or mathematics degree when you can get an degree in animation and illustration.

So people have an excuse to go to university, get loans, go out and get drunk, and only have to attend 1 or 2 2-hour lectures per week.

Mind you, I've met a few people on my chemistry course that must think they are on an art or media type course, the amount of lectures they dont attend and the amount of actual work they dont do.

Matt

[timwilky]

Don't get me wrong people. I am sure there is enough content in the aforementioned degree to justify the award. However, I would see that sort of thing as applied skills with sufficient academic content to qualify for the award. However I just don't see this sort of degree as being truly academically rigorous when compared to traditional degrees.

As for specialisation. Are students not in danger of backing themselves into a corner. My specialism was automotive engineering. However, I did that part post graduate and on the job training.

http://data.bolton.ac.uk/courses/cou...ate=university

Didn't even know that Bolton had a university and I live down the road from it.

Or there's this course at the same place:
http://data.bolton.ac.uk/courses/cou...ate=university

Scroll down to 'About the course'...

Originally Posted by timwilky

As for specialisation. Are students not in danger of backing themselves into a corner. My specialism was automotive engineering. However, I did that part post graduate and on the job training.

Yes, your correct. If you only learn about one thing, then you are qualified to only comment on that one thing. I can't comment on physics, I know little about it (ok, i know stuff about quantum physics, but only in the context of chemistry). But at least I can comment on a whole lot of chemistry, from materials chemistry through to that bloody homeopathic medicine stuff.

Illustration and animation sound slike you will be limited to...illustrating and animating. Not as if you can use it to go get a job in accountancy, for example

Matt

I think you will find that alot of these uni's nowadays are the old polytechnics and therefore the sh*t end of the scale, and as you can see doing micky mouse (no pun intended) courses .

It does amaze me the ammount of silly degrees you can get nowadays. Pointless doing them . I have met some really stupid officers in the army because they have a degree in hymilayan potttery or something equally worthless.But because of the degree they can be officers.WTF!!!

I am in the signals and it amazes me the ammount of officers with no technical degree, no engeneering or comms degrees. what is the point of being in charge of a group of (in my case) highly skilled systems engineers if you dont even have a scooby what their job is about or how comms work!!

I used to work on Hollywood animations (features) and there are 2 clear approaches - claymation/live action (Things happen in the real world) and 3D. The 3D stuff really demands a bloody clever person to get it working properly - all kinds of logic and maths are required to calculate the behaviour of polygons and elements. There is a reason that someone would spend 3 years studying it, as they will then go and work for Framestore, Pixar etc and be a specialist in water or dust or whatever - that's how specialised the marketplace is.

For the last feature I worked on (Chicken Run) we were running business systems to work out per second costs, as Claymation takes so much time to rig/test/shoot that you have to work out how much these things cost for future funding.

I was also lucky enough to work with one of the Heads of Pixar last year - absolutely amazing company - so creative and fun - I don't blame any would-be student for wanting to work for a company like that - just amazing