From Engineering Stream to Creative Passion
Like many students, my parents wanted me to pursue engineering and the secure future they felt it would give me. I enrolled in a B-tech in Computer Engineering. I put in the work and did all my assignments but my heart wasn’t in it. I still liked college life and got involved in a lot of extracurricular activities. This is where I become interested in media and especially video editing. I loved putting together videos and learnt how to edit. Before I knew it, I was the go-to person for entrusted with the task of editing the videos of our college fests. I started out editing on my phone, but with the encouragement of my friends, I started to practice my skills with professional editing softwares like Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D.
I was attending college during the day and practicing the softwares after college hours sometimes staying awake until 2:00 am. As my skills improved, the ambition of my projects grew. I started exploring VFX and I found my passion.
I completed my B.Tech and took up an internship provided to me by my engineering college coding. The long hours left me no time to practice my editing and VFX projects. I was disappointed but my parents wanted me to go abroad to do a Masters in Computer Science which excited me. I started preparing for IELTS and GRE.
While the Covid-19 lockdown was a difficult time for everyone, I was happy to have time to explore the field of VFX. I took up few courses on Udemy and other online platforms to learn the subject and experiment on my own. I began to learn other animation softwares as well. I built a complete model of my community by learning the skills I needed as I went along. I also created a video using the VFX skills I had learnt. I presented my work to my father and told him that I wanted to pursue this field. He saw how hard I had worked on it and how much I had learnt on my own with no one pushing me. He didn’t agree to let me pursue a career in VFX but he agreed to let me take a proper short course in the field to see how much I actually liked it. I joined Annapurna’s one year diploma course in 3D Animation & Visual Effects. I worked hard during the program and continued learning the additional skills that I wanted to; separately online. My father saw that the dedication I had towards my studies related to the creative field was far beyond what I had for my computer science degree. He agreed that I could go abroad and pursue animation and VFX.
I was beyond excited to be able to go abroad and to pursue my passion but I had no idea how to go about it. Luckily, I got a recommendation from a friend to talk to Creative Aspirations. They work exclusively with students interested in the creative fields. When I visited their office, my portfolio was reviewed by Mahender Sir and he outlined my strengths and my areas of improvement. He rightly pointed out that my sketching was not at the level it needed to be. He explained that the entire field of animation and VFX still require a strong understanding of sketching and the skills it provided to VFX students. He further backed it up with the requirements for a portfolio to a top 3D animation and VFX course that required more sketches than renderings. After meeting Mahender Sir, I met with Sheldon who was responsible for the application and he walked me through what I needed to do to build the best application possible. I knew I was in the right place.
I was assigned Vivek as my creative mentor to development sketching skills. My few initial classes of sketching and drawing were like hell. Eventually I started enjoying it because of the way it was being taught. I spent a lot of time working on my skills and took up any extra tasks assigned by our mentor. Sure enough, as my sketching skills got better, so did my 3D animation and VFX. My whole perspective to my work jumped to a whole new level. When it was time to build my actual portfolio, I had excellent sketches and I had help from another creative mentor for giving the final touches to my 3D and VFX pieces. I was amazed at how far my skills developed over the course of six months.
During the admissions process, I had a number of challenges to overcome including a less than stellar academic performance in my B.Tech. Sheldon helped me frame the entire experience in a way that the admissions team would understand. While the GRE isn’t usually required for an application, I got a good score which was helpful in showing that I had the academic ability to do well. We also worked hard on getting the letters of recommendation to reflect my strengths and address my challenges. As I applied to each program, the team was there to help me navigate the submission process and follow ups from the programs. It took a while but I really got the hang of the process. When I got my admit to SCAD, I was so excited that all my hard work had paid off. SCAD has one of the best Master’s programs with a VFX specialization focus and a more reasonable tuition than some of the other programs.
Looking back at the entire process of getting into SCAD, I would have done one thing better. While the process of applying abroad is a “marathon and not a sprint” as Sheldon says, I did one thing at a time. I should have worked on my portfolio, gotten my transcripts evaluated, and started applying to my universities all at once. Waiting for each piece to be done before doing the next meant there was a lot of waiting. What I did appreciate about Creative Aspirations was that they were there to support me at every step. Instead of doing it all for me, they helped me do it. I learnt a great deal throughout the entire process that has given me a lot more confidence which will help me thrive when I go abroad to pursue my Masters.
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