What are some on-campus colleges that use Blender?

I’ve taken some time off from school to work and reassess what I wanted to major in. After about a year using Blender and the game engine whenever I could, I’ve decided I want to go back for 3d design and game development. The one concern I have is to enroll at a school only to find I have to relearn another software and leave the Blender community. Are there are any (nonprivate) colleges you know of that use Blender as a primary software? I am preferably looking for something on-campus, opposed to online.

Any help is greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

I hope this thread can also help others looking to go to college and use Blender.

This may not be the advice you are looking for, but I would recommend against going to college for CG.

You don’t need a degree to do CG, no future employer will hire you on the basis of your degree alone. You need a good portfolio, and you don’t need to spend $40,000 to get that.

Unless you are independently wealthy, or have rich parents. If you have either of those things going in your favor, then have fun.

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You have not said what country you are in. And are you willing to travel to another country to study?

If so I have a place to recommend.

Other than that, my recommendation would be to not consider since you may have to learn other software, you need to leave the Blender community. While it may not be a popular reality, not everyone here only uses Blender. Not everyone here is so dedicated to only using open source that they are not open to learning and using other tools.

Second. If you are thinking about going to college you are also thinking about getting a job I presume. And if you are thinking about getting a job then you should be open to learning Maya or 3D Max. Both you can get for free for 3 years at a time while you study.

And they will be an absolute requirement in most places you go.

You can still keep up with your Blender work and study, and also find ways to incorporate that into your school work.

In general if you are planning to go to school and spend that money and get a degree or whatever - something that may not help you get work now but will help you later in life if you want to use it for other jobs that require it - I would not paint myself into a corner and only learn and use Blender. You will limit your choices of places to work considerably.

This will change in the future. But we are not quite there yet.

Something I would add, at least in the VFX world, one of the most important skills you can have is the ability to learn new software. You’ll be bounced from post house to post house, and everyone will use different tools and have different workflows. To succeed, you really need to be adaptable and a quick learner.

Not just VFX. That applies to pretty much any job that uses programs more complex than word processing and spreadsheets.

True story

Never ever ever spend money on an education to aquire software skills. All the resources are online. Take a few weeks, do the tutorials and you are set! There are few things in life where resources are so readily available (often even for free) as in software.
If you spend money on education spend it on things you can’t just read up on on the internet. Try to learn things that are hard and uncomfortable and require you to think about stuff without looking at a screen. That will be the kind of knowledge that will be still relevant in 10 or 15 years for you. Learning how to set up a cycles scene or something is a cool skill to have and maybe useful for a job today… but you can be sure in 10 years that knowledge will be next to worthless and things will be handled differently. Think big and think longterm. “Software” shouldn’t be a variable in your career decision, that stuff changes all the time.

Thanks for the replies. I guess I’m not so opposed to learning new software. I use multiple different sculpting software with my workflow as it is.

I guess a better question to ask might be:

What nonprivate colleges in the US (preferably near NY) would you recommend for getting a degree in 3D design and game design?

Sorry for being so specific :spin:. I will most likely have most of my schooling covered by financial aid and work study, and will be working either online or locally while in school.

If you have the chance to travel, study some Spanish and go to Barcelona, and enroll on PSL, Pepe school land (https://vimeo.com/user944467)
it’s affordable, its fantastic, its mostly blender based (Daniel teaches you Maya also just for you to learn how to think on cg from different perspectives)
It’s one of the best schools around, and the one year program is 8000 euro… so only like 10.000 us.
Check out his short www.alike.es

I don’t know about 3D and Game design, but NYU has a respectable film program. I would start there. They are one of the biggest schools in the area with a good track record. It would be my guess they have a good Digital/3D/Game department as well.

Here is a link:

Going out from there, start with the larger universities in New York city and maybe Buffalo. They will all have a program for film, game, arts etc.

Best of luck!

PS: Don’t be surprised if some of these schools are starting to also teach Blender. It is growing. Two large Universities in my area offer Blender courses. And all of the students coming out of the Uni at least know Blender a little bit. And some of them are very good. Alongside Maya of course. :wink:

Indeed you can learn blender by yourself if you can’t find what you’re looking for. CG isn’t all about softwares so you may also look for art studies, being a good drawer and having a strong art/visual culture isn’t as easy to get as learning only softwares and will help you a lot more in the long run.
Same goes for animation, you’ll hardly become a professional animator without taking animation course.

If you’re a self learner and go to school (for CG) you may learn way faster than only by yourself. The counterpart is that you remember things way better by trial and error on your own. But not everyone like to learn this way.

I agree with what as been said, that you don’t have to study at school to become a professional (except stuff that need a strong theoretical background like animation ) , and once out of the school you’ll probably have to learn a lot because (at least here in France) teaching how to do stuff and how to work as a professional is 2 different things.

I hope you’ll find what your looking for !

I agree that you can still keep up with your Blender work and study, and also find ways to incorporate that into your school work.

ESCS “Escola Superior de Comunicação Social” in portugal, use blender on Multimedia and audiovisual degree.

Just to add my 2 cents: Go to art school and study sculpting, drawing/painting, and photography. You will learn anatomy as part of the sculpting and drawing classes, you will learn to understand how lighting and color works as part of painting and photography lessons.