Well, I'm in a bit of a bind. Recently I have made it a goal of mine to go to school in March at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts for Video Game Concept Art and Design.
However, such a goal wouldn't be a goal if there was no challenge involved.

Unfortunately, the challenge comes in the form of a ridiculously large amount of money.
26 thousand for tuition alone to give you an idea. Currently I only have 2 thousand and have about 4 months to make the money... which basically means that I won't be able to make the money.

So the difficulty changes as the only option, if I was going to go all out and do whatever it takes to go to school, would be to take out a student loan, most likely around 15 thousand dollars.

At first glance, that sounds okay considering there is no interest on that for 6 months prior to graduation. Upon a closer look however... THAT'S 15,000 BUCKAROONIES I'D BE IN DEBT - BEST CASE SCENARIO!!!

Now, I'll share a little something about myself with you guys. I HATE being in debt. It is one of my few vices on par with noisy cats and rat dogs... (they're high on my list... don't judge )

One bi-product of this debt is I wouldn't have any money for going out or investing in hobbies on my downtime. ALL of my money would be going towards paying off the debt, because, as my parents serve as the best example (married 25 years and still thousands of dollars in debt with all of their funds going to taxes/visa bills), if debt isn't taken care of quickly, it can spiral out of control.


IF I was confident that game art and design was what I wanted to do with my life and I knew this school would get me where I needed to be, there wouldn't be a dilemma, I would simply do it no matter the cost and do whatever is necessary to offset whatever detriment the pursuit of such a goal would entail. In other words, I'd do whatever it took to do it.

That, however, is not the case. I don't know if I want to be in the game art and design industry and I don't know 100%(but am fairly certain) that this school would get me where I need to be if I wanted to get into the industry.

Lately, the school has been giving me a really uncomfortable vibe that hasn't helped the situation either. I constantly feel like I'm being pitched the school program when I'm already sold on it, which brings into question... why are they still trying to convince me to go when I'm already so involved in the community? (This is before my dilemma when I was willing to do whatever it took to go to school) I mean, sure, having the administrations adviser breathing down my neck, no matter how nice he is about it, is expected no matter what school I'm searching out, but recently I've kind of been feeling like the teachers are also trying to push me in the direction of "apply now!" "get in for March" "we know everyone you need to get into the industry!" and that's not all, if you call right now you'll receive a... err... stupid infomercial stuck in my head /face-palm

Basically what it boils down to is, with everything that's happening lately and all the things I want to do, school just isn't an option for the immediate future. Maybe later down the road when I have the money and am at a place in my life where I really do know what I want to do. But even then, I just don't know, I have to think on this more, but right now, the whole idea of spending all that money on a question mark just doesn't sit well with me.

There are outlets I have wanted to explore and I think I need to give myself a chance to do that before I settle on anything like school, let alone a career.