During admissions, I was told that the ETC recruits 40% artists, 40% programmers, and 20% of random people that are the “binding glue.” I was to fall into the 20%, which meant 1) that it would be harder for me to get in and 2) that when I got in, I would be behind in skill sets.
When I got in, I found the latter to be definitely true.
I was assigned as an Artist in Building Virtual Worlds (BVW). BVW is a semester-long course where you work in two week design sprints with alternating teams of five students (two programmers, two artists, and one sound designers) to build original virtual worlds that fulfill different objectives. As an artist, my role was to provide art for the worlds, which meant that I had to learn to 3D model, texture, rig, and animate in one week.
I cried during my first week. I was sick. This was hard. After having been out of school for three years, it was difficult to make an adjustment back to school mentality.
I spent the entire Labor Day weekend trying to complete my first assignment: 3D modeling a dragon. Which is just about as hard as it sounds if you’ve never done it before. I spent four hours just trying to open a file in Photoshop.
While I struggled to complete this assignment, many other artists around me were done in a few hours. Some artists even made two dragons! I had strong doubts that I didn’t belong in the program.
But at the end of the weekend, with a LOT of help from my peers, I did it.