AAU or SCAD with a twist.

I've got my choices for a BFA in visual effects down to these two schools and I know it's been beaten to death. However, I will be approaching the equation with a sorta-unique variable that I will have financial assistance from the GI-Bill.

Now Both schools offer scholarships under the "yellow ribbon program for veterans" ensuring tuition will be almost 100% covered, but the additional assistance for housing and allowance for AAU will be around $2500 a month whereas SCADs will be ~$1200. Factoring in a comfortable studio appt near AAU's campus goes for ~1400 while SCADs equivalent are ~700, I could possibly be making money at the end of the month by going to AAU.

My research has led me to believe SCADs VFX program is better than AAUs, so what I ask all you is is the disparity between the two programs enough to walk away from that bit of allowance money?

I took VFX at AAU and it worked great. I came out of there knowing some programs better (Maya, After Effects, Houdini and Nuke) but what I really liked about it was all the core classes that I took. It may seem like a waste of time when you are doing it but learning Anatomy, Figure Drawing, Figure Sculpting, and Color Theory, etc. has really helped me in the end. On Facebook there is an AAU page and an AAU VFX Page. You can probably get most of your questions answered there.

SCAD is also great. I had two buddies that went there and love it. It was a while ago so it may have changed. They say the same thing about the Core classes as well. I know for AAU I had instructors that really cared. I am sure SCAD has the same but can't say much about them since I didn't go there.

Please don't think you have to learn every 3D program out there either. It helps to learn a lot of programs but without the fundamentals, knowing the programs doesn't really help. Good Luck!

I have a friend who currently goes to AAU. He says to pick SCAD over AAU and he wished he had done that.

why is that?

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