Table of contents:

1. Loca­tion, loca­tion, loca­tion
2. The time of your life
3. Facil­i­ties are all the rage now
4. Course load reach­ing crit­i­cal mass, cap­tain
5. Schools gots’ta rep­re­sent, yo.. um,G. Slice… dawg
6. Money money money money money money money money money money money
7. The gut factor

1. Location, location, location

This may not seem like a big influ­ence to some, but an oppor­tu­nity to expand your hori­zons and expe­ri­ence some­thing new and exotic. Both are very true, but come with a price (which I cover in more detail later) which is lit­er­ally, the cost of it all. Sure going to a school across the ocean sounds like a great idea, but try and remem­ber it costs money to apply, get a stu­dent visa, fly over there and back, living expenses, etc.

If you can get past the cost, try and remem­ber the cul­ture shock involved with it all. Going to a school 5 hours away may not seem like a fair dis­tance, but trust a man who drives 5 hours to see his girl­friend. It is. It can affect your rela­tion­ships with people, how often you get to hang out with your old chums, and see your family. This may of course be a boon in some people’s eyes. I’m not here to judge, merely to point things out.

Regard­less, of if you go to school 5 hours away /fly across the coun­try/ another coun­try/ the other side of the world, you’re going to expe­ri­ence cul­ture shock. From my expe­ri­ence, people take this in one of two ways: they either embrace the new cul­ture and soak it in, or they go half-​nuts and deny the alien soci­ety. Be care­ful with where you go and research foods, cus­toms, cul­ture, etc., before you go. You’ll thank your­self later.

Don’t go some­where just to see it; that’s what vaca­tions are for. Weigh the pros and cons of your loca­tions before decid­ing on anything.

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2. The time of your life

I’m not talk­ing about the having type, but your lit­eral exis­tence in your own per­sonal time-​line. Sure people say that if you wanna go for it, just go for it and be damned to the rest of the world. Though this is a won­der­fully roman­tic notion, it could screw the next 5-10-15 years of your life. Heck yeah! Going to the pre­mium school was a great idea! Too bad you did it with­out saving any money for it and ended up taking out a stu­dent loan that would make the rich weep. Now you’ve got a great edu­ca­tion under your belt, and you’re stuck in finan­cial bondage for the next x amount of years in your life. Things won’t look so shiny then. It may have been worth it per­son­ally, but you’re lifestyle will suffer.

I’m not saying that you should have every penny paid off before you go, but stop and look at your sit­u­a­tion before you embark on the edu­ca­tion train. Maybe it would make more sense to go in 6 months? You know, when you’ve saved up at least some sort of slush fund? Try and make sure you have a place to live, some­thing to eat, and a backup plan before you start. That way if every­thing goes down the crap­shoot, you’re not totally screwed.

Taking extra time is also good for you to sit down and really con­sider your options. Do you really want to go to school for that field? Are you sure? What will it do for you? Is this for per­sonal or pro­fes­sional growth? Will you get any­thing out of it in the end? These are all ques­tions you should answer hon­estly to your­self. The answers should be more then one sen­tence long, and with­out an excla­ma­tion point on the end of them. Crit­i­cize your own points to see if they stand up against argu­ment.

Step back and look at your life before decid­ing on going to school. It’s a dras­tic change and needs to be approached with maturity.

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3. Facilities are all the rage now

Phys­i­cally scope out the school. Don’t be sur­prised when their ‘rustic and natural’ loca­tion means they’re in the middle of nowhere and have bear sight­ings every 18 min­utes. Go to the schools you are inter­ested in and walk around them. Walk through them to. Exam­ine the class­rooms (if you can). Ask the admin­is­tra­tion desk if there are guided tours; if the exist then take them. Ask a load of ques­tions and don’t be shy. If these schools wants your blood, sweat, tears, time, and hard-​earned money, then by golly they can answer your questions.

Check out the fac­ulty as well. Make sure that they’re up to snuff. Just because they school has award-​winning teach­ers does not mean that they know how to teach worth a damn.

Make sure to ask ques­tions that directly affect you. What’s the park­ing policy? What sort of computers/whatever tech­nol­ogy you need do you use? What hours is the school open? What sort of library do they have? What is the school capac­ity? etc. etc. Write down your ques­tions before hand and bring paper to jot down the answers if you really need to. Being informed about the school will go a long way in help­ing you decide.

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4. Course load reaching critical mass, captain

Check out your course load from the schools web­site or if you’re feel­ing Lud­dite, their printed cat­a­log and see what’s in store for you. Most schools will offer sim­i­lar courses, but the dif­fer­ence is in the fine print. Read the descrip­tions of all the courses, as well as the expec­ta­tions and what you should be walk­ing away with at the end of each course. If you’ve gone to school before, see if you have any trans­fer­able cred­its. This can help ease your course load even if it’s only by one or two courses. Not all schools will accept trans­fer cred­its let alone from every school known to man. Make sure that the courses are offer­ing what you are expect­ing. You’d be amazed at what they’ll pass off in the fine print.

Find out the dura­tion of the entire diploma. Some­times the extra year can make a huge dif­fer­ence for your even­tual career. Some­times it won’t make so much of an impact that you can’t go back at a later date and upgrade. You should weigh these options when decid­ing on a school. Some­times it worth not going for the extra year for the moment. Other times you’d be a fool not to. Judge that years courses and com­pare it to your life goals.

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5. Schools gots’ta represent, yo.. um,G. Slice… dawg

Ask around about the schools you are inter­ested. Asking the school will only allow them to stroke their ego in your face. Ask people who are going there, if you can. Read sum­maries and cri­tiques others have writ­ten about the school. Look for the flaws but don’t amplify them, just make sure you know what they are. On that same note, make sure you know what the school does really well. Not what’s in their mis­sion state­ment, but from what people have said and accom­plished there. I don’t care if you have a pro­fes­sor there that cured AIDS, can they actu­ally teach? It’s fan­tas­tic that you’ve got a great gym and health centre! Why do you still have a wing of 386 desk­tops though?

Find out what the admis­sion require­ments were like. Sure they say they only wanted 10 pieces, but what ones are they biased to? Sure you needed an 80 to be con­sid­ered, but how many people in the course actu­ally had an 80? Just because the school says they need some­thing, doesn’t mean there aren’t strings ttached.

Get the dirt on your schools. Maybe you like dirt. Maybe you are, by nature, a dirty person. I have no idea. The impor­tant part is to make sure you don’t only pay atten­tion to the sun­shine that all schools claim shines from their butts. I’m fairly cer­tain that at least one of them claim to be made up entirely of rain­bows and can­dies as well. Just be informed.

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6. Money money money money money money money money money money money

Ever notice how words lose their mean­ing when you write them out of context?

I could prob­a­bly write a whole sec­tion on money alone, but I won’t. The fact is that money will play a big factor in your choice of edu­ca­tion. Some­times going to the 50k school for the name on the cer­tifi­cate isn’t worth the pain in the wallet that it will cause. School­ing that forces you to take out big loans to com­plete will only slow you down once you finish school. If you have to take out loans, find ones that pro­vide stu­dent rates, don’t start col­lect­ing until you are done school, and then make sure to spend as little of it as pos­si­ble. If you want to try and beat the system, you could take the money you’re not using, and dump it into a high-​interest sav­ings account. At least there it will grow a little and make paying back the loan that much easier.

Com­pare prices between the dif­fer­ent schools, and make sure to ask why there is a dif­fer­ence. Make sure you check to see what “additional” costs they are going to tack on. Some pro­grams require you buy a uni­form, or a com­puter, or other tools that are not men­tioned in the adver­tised price. It’s sort of like buying a car, except you can’t nego­ti­ate at all, or trying to bribe the one straight-​arrow cop in Detroit (I have no idea how crooked the cops in Detroit are, if at all. I’m just giving an exam­ple). If one school is dras­ti­cally lower or higher in cost, find out why. Some­times the cost could be worth it (though some­how I doubt this is a common occurrence.)

If you can, save up as much as you can before you go. This will allow you to help pay off bills, tuition, or just pad your pock­ets while your in the long haul. Having a per­sonal slush fund is just a smart move. You don’t know when you’re car will break down, or when you’ll need to drop a good amount of coin on a project. By saving as much money before you go, you will lessen the pain that you will expe­ri­ence from day to day life.

Having said that, you’ll prob­a­bly have to learn how to be cheap. I’ll admit that I’m a bad spender when it comes to buying food, which is some­thing I am fixing. I did a little self-​study back in the day, and found I was drop­ping about 300 bucks a month on food alone. This isn’t even gro­cery food we’re talk­ing about here. This is me simply buying lunch in the cafe­te­ria every day. Maybe throw in a snack too. 10 dol­lars a day doesn’t seem like much at the time, but it adds up.

A good habit that I found is to spend phys­i­cal money. It helps you watch as your dol­lars are flit­ted away on every­thing. Stay away from using plas­tic for your pur­chas­ing of smaller items. you’ll quickly start to curb your spend­ing. It’ll also help you become a more crit­i­cal thinker when it comes to buying any­thing. It will help develop that little voice in the back of your head that says things like “do you really need that 5th burger?” or “Seriously, watch­ing your buddy eat that month old lasagna isn’t worth twenty bucks … is it?” (I’m going to be honest and say that I would indeed pay money to see my friend eat month-​old lasagna. I’m a hor­ri­ble being sometimes.)

Spend smart, and spend little. Com­pare school prices and course costs. Aim for low loan inter­est rates, and don’t be late on any pay­ments. That will very quickly ruin your credit rating.

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7. The gut factor

I know I’ve given a lot of tips and advice here, all of which you can take with a grain of salt. In the end it all comes down to you. If you go to a school and you get a bad feel­ing don’t ignore it. Man kind has more going on inside then we real­ize, and trust­ing our gut instinct is a lost art. After you’ve weighed your options go and search your­self and see what feels right. Going with that option will prob­a­bly end up being the better choice for you on a per­sonal level. Some­times going for what feels right will allow you to have a much fuller expe­ri­ence in your school­ing over going to the “better” school. Just because it’s better doesn’t mean it won’t suck to be there.

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Trust your­self and you shouldn’t do all that wrong. If how­ever you hear mul­ti­ple voices, either turn down the head­phones, or seek med­ical help.

This is the second part of an ongo­ing series depict­ing my process to becom­ing a graphic designer. Next up is how you can help your­self get edu­cated at work before you get educated.

• Part One
• Part Two (Cur­rently reading)
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six
• Part Seven