Bellevue College

After reading multiple reviews of this school, I was a bit nervous about attending. However, I eventually submitted my application and got accepted. Let's take this one category at a time starting with the student advisor. My student advisor at first was very helpful. She quickly replied to my emails and answered all of my questions. I had a lot of questions as this was my first time ever attending university. Soon after I began classes, my student advisor left and I was assigned another advisor.... Read More The second advisor was amazing. He was able to help me with everything I asked and he always replied in a timely manner. He made it feel like we were working together to complete this degree. From scheduling classes, to making sure that I graduated when I wanted to, he was there every step of the way and never pointed me in the wrong direction. Now, we move onto the instructors. For the most part the instructors were helpful. I had a few instructors that I didn't care for, but I cannot say that they were "bad". It just seemed like they were not all that invested in my success. However, there were other instructors that were absolutely amazing and took the effort to provide real feedback on the assignments. I cannot image someone attending a school and never having an instructor they didn't care for. The good professors greatly outweighed the negative experiences I had. I had a few Gen Ed classes that my credits from the military did not cover. So I ended up taking English, Math, History, and Oral Communications. The two biggest problems I had were with Math and Oral Communications. The oral communications class requires you to film yourself in front of a group giving a speech. This can be difficult if you do not have people available to help you complete these assignments. The math class utilizes ALEKS, which is an online math program that is separate from the university. This program is utter trash and I think moving to something like Pearson would be advisable. All of my other classes were good. Normal classes have 1 discussion board post per week, and require 3 - 5 substantial replies to fellow students. You will also normally have a 1 - 2 page paper to do per week along with a quiz and the weekly reading. I am relatively quick when it comes to writing papers so it normally didn't take me long to knock out 1 - 2 pages. I was taking 3 classes per term which resulted in having 1 paper per week per class on average. You need to make sure you can manage your time effectively. If you don't turn in your paper on time, you will not get credit. Simple as that. Some people on here say that they had trouble with the financial department and the GI Bill... I never had a single issue with them. Also the Kirkpatrick Signature Series classes were not my favorite, but they were far from difficult. The main objective of the classes is to teach students to think objectively about the politics without your conservative or liberal bias showing in your work. If people failed that class, it is because they were unable to effectively separate their viewpoints from the material. I work full time 40+ hours a week, we had a child while I was taking classes, and I still managed to get a 3.98 GPA. It can be done, but it is not going to just be given to you. You need to put in the work to make it happen. While certainly think that there are things the school could do better, overall, I am happy with my decision to attend and to get my degree. There are many points that I was frustrated, but in the end, it was worth it.

I have 70 college credits. They told me that only 21 credits would transfer. On their website they say that they will accept all your associate credits and that they have an open transfer policy. They are also partnered with the college I was attending. They completely lied!! They want me to almost start over. They said I had to take 20 something credits of general education all over again!! It's crazy. They only have money on the mind. They are liars. Run. Get a preliminary transfer report first!!... Read More

Overall, Animation Mentor taught me the skills required to be successful in the animation industry. However, due to the saturation of emoployment in the industry the limited skillset is rather useless. The unfortunate part of the entire process was the fact that the co-founder of the school kept on expressing the growth of the industry however, when you look at VFX Studios they are barely surviving thus resulting in less jobs. A good example is Rhythm & Hues which shut down after Life of Pi was created... Read More because they did not receive any profit sharing from the success of the movie. Another thing about Animation Mentor is unless you want to stricly film animation I do not recommend it. If you want to focus on video game animation I would recommend iAnimate over Animation Mentor. Due to the limitations of movie focused animation it was extremely frustrating since game animation is quite different in regards to what you need to be good at.