Education | Oh so Ang!

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Stayin’ alive.

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

Oh, hello!

What’s new… I start college on September 7. September 2 is a “portfolio review” to see if I can go from Pre-Graphic Design to Graphic Design. Since I am a web designer, I’m feeling fairly confident that I’m a shoe-in. I guess you never know, though. The guidelines for the review list previous work done at college, and all my examples are websites I’ve made. Unfortunately, all examples cannot be digital. So I had to print out websites, which really is not a great way to showcase your work. Things are sized down, colors are muted. At any rate, I’m hoping the examples will be sufficient. I have nothing else! I haven’t drawn or done any artwork in years. Besides – it’s for GRAPHIC DESIGN; shouldn’t examples of graphic/web design be what they want to see? Fingers crossed!

I’ll have a lot less free time when school starts. Especially Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do believe my schedule will have me up at 5am (which will be every day, for the bus) until my last class ends at 8 or 9pm those days. So not looking forward to that. I didn’t want any evening classes, but one that I need is only available then. I’m hoping I’ll buck up and use the college gym when I have a big gap between classes. We’ll see how comfortable I feel. If the gym is mad busy, I’ll probably pass. It’s “free” (if you consider $12,000/year for college “free”). Riding the bus is also “free” for being a student.

I’ll be getting a locker and bringing my own lunch/snacks so hopefully I don’t have to pay inflated prices for crap in the school restaurants. I even bought a super cute new lunch bag and matching insulated water bottle holder (you know how those metal bottles sweat!). I’m fairly certain I won’t need to have a Macbook, at least right away. I emailed the instructor for my 2-D Digital Design class, which stated needing a Mac, and she said as long as I have Photoshop and Illustrator (I do) I’ll be fine. I’ll have to use a school’s Mac to upload assignments or something, but whatev. Better than dropping $2k on a neutered machine with less hardware features than I’ve got already! Ordered a new 500GB hard drive for my laptop so I should have plenty of space (I have 160GB right now – ugh!).

I am so not looking forward to being stuck around a bunch of pretentious art snobs every day. Hipster Mac fanboys and -girls. Nor 18 yr old hyper dimwits, especially if they come to class fully decked out in their goddamn pajamas. I am thinking I’ll be blogging/tweeting a lot more when school starts. Mostly to make fun of people. Am I a bad person?

Thankfully I don’t have to take, like, composition or math and all the other basic stuff. Hoping I’ll be around older more mature people. And with the economy (so sick of that word) the way it is, I’m hoping there will be a lot of, erm, geezer students like myself. I’m 28! That’s like 30!!

I signed up for a few clubs. One for video gamers (I’m not sure how well I’ll fit in, being a noob), one for playing the game Go, and one for playing desktop games. I don’t know if the last one is like D&D or something cool like Battlestar Galatica. I’ll at least check them out. Also signed up for the Art+Design club. If it’s not too pretentious, it should be cool. I need more friends!

The coveted and later acquired boots.

I’m not sure if it is the closing of a chapter in my career (thank FSM) or having a steady boyfriend for really the first time ever, or what. But I suddenly have an obsession with fashion. I have never been a fashion girl. Always tshirts and jeans and sneakers. Forever and always. Now? I own like 6 skirts. I have a bunch of cute tops that aren’t tshirts. In fact, I kind of cringe at wearing a tshirt anywhere but at home. I like heels! I’m obsessed with buying cute booties with a wedge or thick-ish heel that I can walk in. I only have 1 pair so far, but I tried on a pair the other day at a store and fell in love! They were so hot with jeans. It took everything I had to put the $60 boots back on the shelf. I am sure I’ll go buy them some other time. But I couldn’t justify the purchase quite yet. I’m unemployed! I do so enjoy browsing various websites for shoes, bags, jewelry, clothes (that might fit me – but rarely do they, so I like the accessories more). That’s browsing – not buying! I’m even a bit of a brandwhore. This is not Angela! Or rather, not the old Angela. New Angela is really a whole new person.

Old Angela? Workhorse, depressed and angry, single, drab in appearance.
New Angela? Going back to school, feeling somewhat hopeful (but still depressed a lot), boyfriend, caring about how I look.

Closing doors, starting new chapters, big life changes! Exciting!

Posted in Education, Fashion | 1 Comment »

Goddamn fucking moronic elitists.

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

You may recall my previous rant about college/uni being a rip-off. If not, well: college/uni is a fucking rip-off.

Earlier this year, I decide I should amp up my design skills. I figure a BFA in Graphic Design might be a great idea. Enrolled, accepted, go to orientation and registration earlier this week.

Required: a 15″ (at least) Macbook Pro.

Cocksucking motherfuckers.

But it’s free sales tax! Your loans can be used to buy it!

It’s still fucking $1,699, plus the software I’ll be required to purchase and use! I’ll be lucky if my student loans cover my tuition, much less this overpriced fucking thing.

The kicker is I have an awesome laptop, with the entire Adobe Creative Suite. It works amazingly. I’ve been a designer for 10 years (5+ professionally) and never needed a goddamn Mac. Ever. Now because people are ignoramuses and think Macs are “easy to use”, Apple has their fingers in the fucking university system, with their grossly overpriced shiny junk.

Don’t give me that shit about Macs being better with design. A) I have my doubts, and B) it’s $1,699+ that I don’t have. So all the arguments in the world will not make up for the fact that requiring this hunk of shit may mean I cannot attend university.

It was also great when, during the tour of the campus, it was pointed out a few times, that new wings or fitness rooms came in under budget, so the college bought a bunch of flat-screen TVs. Uh, assholes, how about kicking some of that money back to your students that you are robbing blind?

Goddamn, I hate higher (priced) education. Motherfuckers.

Edit: I am trying to find a more reasonably-priced used Macbook on eBay, but I’m certainly not getting my hopes up.

Tags: adobe, apple, bullshit, Education, elitists, mac, rip-off, robbery, university
Posted in Education | 8 Comments »

College is a rip-off.

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

College, university, whatever you want to call it. After realizing I am at a bit of a dead-end in my life, I have decided to return to college in the Fall of 2010 (if things go as planned). There are many reasons I stopped at just an Associate’s degree a few years ago. The primary reason being a lack of interest. I was making decent money employed as a web designer, I had learned most of my skills on my own or from peers, for free. College seemed pointless to continue.

One of my biggest peeves about higher education is the higher price tag. For me to go to uni this fall, tuition alone will be $11,000+. For one year. Then add on the absurd price of books (yay half.com!), overpriced food if I forget to bring any with me to the campus, plus any other fees (I’ll be in the art department, I don’t doubt there will be plenty of extras I’ll need to purchase).

Yep, a homeless man is richer than you are.

Add to the cost, all the silly hoops you have to jump through and pointless, useless classes you have to take to meet the requirements for a degree. The justification of all these extra pointless classes that have nothing to do with your goal is to “make a more well-rounded student” of you. I think that’s a pile of bullshit right there. The more classes they require you to take, the more fees and tuition they can milk out of you.

But all that money must surely be going toward getting excellent professors! I have my doubts there. College administrators drive the fanciest cars in the lots, and live very well. Is my money going toward my own advancement in life, or theirs? I think more of it is going toward theirs.

Unless you come from the kind of family where mommy and daddy could actually afford to pay cash for your college education (where the fuck do these people come from?!), you’ll be incredibly deep in debt from day 1 until fucking retirement age.

I was hoping to avoid the crushing weight of student loan debt, but alas. I think you can pretty much guarantee your résumé or job applications are trashed if you don’t have “Bachelor’s Degree” at the very least listed. It doesn’t matter what your skills and experience are in the real world. Unless you have that degree. I’d say it’s incredibly rare that an employer will look past the lack of degree and just focus on your portfolio and what you can do for them. It happens, but not often enough.

I hate that what you can do isn’t as important as something as expensive and useless (remember those pointless classes?) as a big degree. I think it’s another magnifying glass on the elitism out there. Employers will say a Bachelor’s degree shows you can put your mind toward something and accomplish it. What I’ve seen, they’re just blowing smoke up your ass. It shows you’re a part of their club.

I’m certainly not trying to knock education and learning. For fuck’s sake, learn all you can, fill your brain to the brim. With the internet, you have tons of information available to you for free. I’m just wagging my middle finger at the goddamn colleges and universities that cost an arm and a leg and don’t focus as much on truly learning as they claim to.

Tags: bachelor's degree, Education, elitism, Money, resume, rip-off, tuition, university
Posted in Education, Money | 9 Comments »