Something I keep noticing after talking to animation alumni
I talk to a lot of students and recent grads in this space, and the same thing keeps coming up no matter who I ask.
It's not the classes they miss. It's not the professors. It's knowing what they're supposed to be doing every day. In school there's a clear path, you know what step comes next and how to actually get from an idea to something finished. Once that's gone, people are just figuring it out on their own, and a lot of them don't even know who else out there is going through the same thing.
I've heard some version of this from more than one person now, different schools, same answer. Structure, and having people around you working on the same stuff.
Once you're out, the options aren't great. Job boards work if you already know exactly what role you need. Discord servers work if you're lucky and the right person happens to see your post. Neither one gives you back what school actually gave you, which was never just a class, it was a team and a process.
That's basically what pushed me to build something around it, a competition where a team works through animation production together, stage by stage, so nobody's carrying the whole thing alone. Looking for 30 people to lead a team right now. It's called UMDB: umdb.org
Anyone else find a real fix for this once school ends?