Mog and Chips

Doing research, talking to some people…

What I need to do is contact some universities that do animation that’s either completely 3D (where I might miss out on the theory) or animation that leans more towards digital (ie, they don’t give the impression that CGI isn’t ‘proper’ animation) and find out whether I can jump into the second year.

If so, I either transfer directly across for september this year, living somewhere along the guildford-waterloo line, since most of those unis happen to be in London.

If not, I take one or two years out working, then have a bigger choice when moving - places like Swansea are meant to be good for animation, don’t know about sound.

Problem is that in the worst case scenario I have to do the first year again, then after the BA I still have to take a masters - wasting the first year I’ve done here, and then possibly the 3 years elsewhere.

At the same time, if I work for that one-two years, a good portion will be eaten up with the 3/4 council tax (since it’ll be a flat of one student, one worker) but I’ll hopefully have enough money to then support myself for the following three years.

I’d want… 6000 to cover what I won’t get in tuition fee and student loan. Then I’ll need 3000 to cover what I’ll never get from the government. That’s 9000 in one year… might have to take two years, considering I probably won’t be earning more than £15,000 a year.
Then, I might need an extra 10,000 for the three years - The government sure as hell isn’t going to say “well your family earns so much, but they’re not giving it to you? That’s ok, we’ll give you the grant instead!” They’ll just say “your family SHOULD have the money, so they SHOULD give it to you, end of story”

I don’t want strings attached - I don’t want to take money from my family and then still have them trying to control what I’m spending it on - I don’t want to be called stupid and disappointing and all the rest, and not being able to defend myself because it’s not my own money.

So I’ll need the third year’s fees/loan (6000)

Three years worth of government grant I’m not getting or parental help I may not be accepting (9000)

And paying back my parents 3000 because I don’t want these sodding strings.

So, In total I need 19,000 before I change my course. That’s going to take more than one year. If I’m earning minimum wage (rounded to £5), that’s going to take 2 years if I don’t actually spend anything (£10400), paying rent (3000 minimum for half a £500/m place) so £7400 - three years, if not four. (I’m not taking out a loan and paying it back later, I’m earning the money first so it doesn’t end up being twice as much after interest etc) and then I’ll still be about £19000 in debt from the first three years that I had money from the SLC.

…Or I could continue doing my degree at the moment, where I’m not actually learning as much as I want to, then do a masters at the end (which will have to be funded by myself anyway, since I doubt I’ll be getting much financial help from the government).

I fucking hate this. If the university doesn’t have suitible resources to teach, it shouldn’t be taking then maximum student fee it can: If a good deal of my lessons are going to be cancelled, why am I still paying £3000 for them? Why am I paying ~£90 a week when it’s going to be

Monday: “Ok continue on your project”

Every other Tuesday: “Sorry, your life drawing was cancelled this week. ”

Thursday: Lecture (the only useful thing)

Every other friday: “Ok, go home and continue your other project.”

And they don’t give you a course handbook on the open day: they tell you when you start the course

They don’t tell you “by the way, about 50% of the staff quit this year”, until you start.

They don’t tell you what the mark criteria are for the modules, until after you’ve handed them in.

So maybe it works out cheaper for me to keep my damn mouth shut, put up with all this bollocks, let the university have end up with £9000 total from me for a weekly lecture, then take a masters afterwards. Then I’m not an extra £10000 in debt from one extra year. Then my parents are happy because I’m keeping quiet and putting all my faith into the university system.

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