Guidance Requested: Is this right for me?

[indigoshuffle]

When you say "art," do you mean fine art like a contemporary artist who paints, sculpts, and use non-traditional media and conceptual art? Or do you mean graphic design? 

Both?

Many famous American artists who helped build the American art scene used the GI bill to attend art school.

SNHU has a graphic design program, and some marketing classes for artists are built into the program. They would be willing to take quite a few of your credits, but you'd have to check with them. Someone on this forum did a low-cost graphic design degree with SNHU, and he is--to my knowledge--working as a graphic artist. If I can find the thread, I'll edit this post and link it.

Many state schools hire practicing artists who make a living making art, and they will be your best source of information on how to "market" yourself and get your work out there so you can build a brand. 

I would avoid getting into debt for art school. The classes are long, so your credit hours will be more expensive. Some of my studio painting classes were 6 hours long, that's six credits... and it was mandatory to graduate. Not to mention, it takes an hour to set up and another hour to break down and properly clean your workspace. So it's like a full day of work.

I would be able to help you if you gave me more information about how you see your career unfolding.

I would very much enjoy not going into debt lol I did want to go to art school for animation before joining the military but the price tag made it out of reach. 

I suppose I am looking for both conceptual art stuff and graphic design. I’m out of practice for the more traditional stuff unfortunately so maybe I should just stick with what I’ve been doing now. 

I’d love to do it but based on my research transferring credits to an online school for a specialist field is pretty difficult especially for something like graphic design. Right now I want to keep my spending low as I prepare to leave the Navy. I’d like to get a degree that isn’t going to hurt my wallet. 

I’m interested in communication specialist roles, post production editing roles, multimedia design roles, UX/UI, web development.. I like creating. My top choices are the ones I already market myself as on LinkedIn. Communication specialist/strategic communicator and multimedia designer. I live to tell stories. Also to learn and teach but I can do that without a degree

Animation is a very expensive degree, I went to a school with an animation program and many of my art buddies work for Cartoon Network, Ubisoft, and a bunch of other companies. Many of them I still keep in contact with live in NYC independently and are able to make rent and buy their fancy cars, so take that for what it's worth. Basically, they make a lot of money. FYI, they work side jobs at graphic design firms for extra $$. The animation people are highly trained so finding work is not difficult. They also work them to the bone. They put in doctor like hours into their careers. 

If you want to do post production work, web development etc, then a state school in a metropolitan area is the way to go. Transfer in all of your gen eds, so you can focus on your major. There are also inexpensive training programs at several community colleges that teach production work, camera work, etc.

Now if you want a degree just to have a degree, sure, go with TESU or UMPI. But from what you're telling me, I doubt you'd feel fulfilled, which is just as important as saving money.

You've got to find a way to make a compromise between your budget and your personal fulfillment as a human being.

In short, everyone I know that worked hard, and went into school for animation or video production work are doing just fine and are making more money than me as a nurse. AND they're happy.

You might want to look more closely at SNHU. Just my $0.02

Either way thank you for your service. I look forward to seeing how things progress for you via this forum!