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I'm currently a freshman at university studying mechanical engineering. I'm pretty sure I want my career path to be in 3D animation, however, I'm hesitant to major in it as it seems quite risky. It does seem silly to spend 4 years working towards a degree I probably won't be using (engineering), but on the other hand, an animation degree is practically useless from what I've gathered from Reddit lol. With that said, my school offers an animation degree. There are 20 courses required and I'm thinking of just taking the 10 classes which are purely 3D animation. The other ten are filler courses like art history and web design. Do you think this is a good idea? Is it enough to just have the meat of knowledge without the filler courses? Is it truly only my portfolio that matters? Thanks for any feedback!
In my experience it's just better to concentrate on one to make yourself really competitive in that one thing, especially if your two focuses are unrelated, they're not going to complement each other.
Yes and no, you have to spend a lot of time honing your skills to be an effective animator. I think taking the courses is a good start for sure and then you can also decide if you even like animating, but make sure you talk to actual animators in the industry to see if it's the kind of life you want. Most of the time, the work is gig-based which means each project is going to last a certain amount of weeks or months and then you're looking for work again. That can be tough especially when you're starting out.
My question is this: why do engineering if you want to animate? To have a backup? To be a competitive engineer you have to put all of your eggs in the engineering basket so that you're able to compete for internships and jobs. Also the course load for engineering is pretty rigorous, meant to weed out people who aren't meant for it. So, if you're jumping between two non-related majors, it's going to be hard to be competitive in either.
(Fyi, speaking from experience as I am an animator and my husband is mechanical engineer.)
I think you should major in the field you actually want to work in. Its nice to have a backup, but if you're just dipping your toes in animation while also devoting hundreds of course hours to a demanding degree in engineering, I don't think you're going to gain the necessary skills you need to be a good animator who can find a job right out of school (or a good engineer if that's what you're aiming for).
That being said, you can definitely get animation work without a degree in animation, but you have to have a great reel. Also the network connections which you generally gain in an animation program or in internships are priceless when you're starting out.
But you're still a freshman, you're not going to know what you really want to do until you get into the meat of your courses and talk to people who actually work in those fields.
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Well you have time, just see what you're leaning towards and eventually you'll figure out what you really need.