If you are seeking an education in how to illustrate, draw and render artwork like the great masters, the place not to go is to college. Academic colleges of art do not teach people how to draw. They do teach art history, color theory and composition, but if you are interested in going to art school to learn how to illustrate and draw characters, going to an atelier is ideal.

But even then, art is like computer programming – it is a technical field. It is all about directed practice and skill – not about getting A’s by parroting a professor’s philosophy or appealing to their aesthetic sense.

One of my favorite 3D artists is Monty Oum. In his interview with Screw Attack, Monty Oum admitted that he never went to college, and is in fact a high school dropout. He doesn’t endorse the path he took, however, it is impossible to argue with his talent.

After he created “Haloid”, he got enough publicity and attention that he was recruited by Midway. At Midway, in his spare time, he created the “Dead Fantasy” series and later landed a job at Konami. He is arguably one of the most talented 3D artists in the industry.

College Fund

Continuing my articles on college and computer programming:

In an article I uncovered from MSN Moneycentral, the author examines if a college degree is a smart investment, even though a college degree will earn you twice as much money in terms of revenue.  Interestingly enough, the article shows that at 2007 dollars, the person who starts off in highschool with no debt and invests his money will have saved nearly triple the amount that the person who has a degree.

This is because the college graduate, though earning twice as much as the highschool graduate, has a substantial debt to pay off before he starts investing in his own retirement.

This all falls back on simple principles of saving your money and living well below your means of earning.  In general, people live at a cost of living that is equal to their revenues.  It is a painful lesson to learn, especially in the age of credit cards and easy mortgages.  Something I wish I learned earlier in my life.

A question was raised on government-subsidized education in allaying the costs.  Personally, I would disagree with this.  Knowing myself (and lots of my contemporaries), I squandered my time in college.  I had to personally answer for it to my parents who helped foot the bill.  And even though thousands of college students have to personally answer to their parents for their time in college taking classes on Starcraft, how much easier it is to slack off when the money isn’t personal?  The best and most responsible students I met in college were the ones who had to pay 100% of the bill themselves.

And this isn’t even getting into the problem that if college education was no longer special and voluntary, but expected and mandatory, it lowers the standard of learning.  Every year we are churning out thousands of college graduates a year, and already we are seeing a growing phenomenon of post-graduates living at home saddled with debt and who are unable to really go somewhere lives – even with a college degree.

This is a powerful lesson to learn and really watch, especially for those of you who are in the computer field.

The computer is really freedom.  Many people take the freedom of the computer and bury themselves in countless hours of time playing games.  But for those of us who know how to program, the computer is financial freedom, especially in the midst of one of the worst economies in our lifetimes.

We don’t have to play by those rules.  We can educate ourselves.  We don’t have to accumulate massive debts before starting out careers.  All we need is a computer, a connection to the Internet, a lot of determination, hard work and the world is ours for the taking.

Forever in debt

One of the reasons I focus on college so much is that I’m contemplating how I can help my sons do well in the world.  The default option is to send my sons to college so that I can rely on professional teachers to teach them a marketable skill.

According to the U.S. Census bureau and other sources of information, having a college degree nearly doubles the person’s earning potential.  This is great news for a parent hoping to rocket boost their child’s ability to make a better life for themself.  However, what the article does not say is how much such an education would cost them.

For instance, a medical doctor may be earning over $100,000/year.  But what is left unstated is that the doctor had spent about 10 years of her life training and being educated in her field, with thousands of on-the-job hours of education, interning and residency before making a doctor’s wage.  But not only has the new M.D. spent that many years of their life training to earn such a salary, but they are saddled with a college debt that is bigger than most mortgages, payable within 15 years of the time they start working.

Taking this college inflation calculator on this site, I calculate that by the time my 4-year-old becomes 18 and is ready for college, going to my in-state alma mater would cost me and him a sum of nearly $200,000 for a basic 4-year bachelor’s degree.  The approximate rate of educational inflation is 7%.  If people are not saying that there is no “education bubble” isn’t looking at the numbers.

To send my sons off to college when they have no idea what they want to do and rely on “guidance counselors” to give them career advice is idiocy.  Worse still if I send them there to become even more generic and “well-rounded” to make them less distinguishable from the other hundreds of thousands of graduates the universities churn out each year.

As a parent, what can I do?

Unlike other technical fields like automobiles or electronics, computer programming doesn’t require expensive materials.  All it requires is a computer that you can program and the time and dedication to learn.  Today, you have so many options of what you can use for free to compile and run your programs, to practice and master your craft.  Everything from the Flex SDK, Microsoft Visual Studio Express, to JAVA blows open the doors for anyone who wants to put in the time to learn.

What computer programming represents is freedom – a way to beat everlasting slavery to your debtor.  But you have to be willing to fight for that freedom, and put in the hours to practice and learn.

Free Your Mind.