# Review VFS 3D Animation and Visual Effects



## moonphantom (Sep 17, 2011)

Hey,

This is a review I made for Art School Reviews to give my personal experience of VFS. Hope this helps people decide weather or not they want to go. I am not holding back anything about this course and about the school itself.

I've been in love with animation, drawing and being creative since I was a little boy. I always dreamed of waking up every day and going to a job that really doesn't feel like a job but feels more like having fun. I couldn't imagine a better career than to do what I love and am most passionate about.
I choose the school for a variety of reasons. Prior to going to VFS, I was a student for Digital Animation at a local public college, and my experience there was not too favorable. One day as I was sitting in the computer lab browsing YouTube, I saw some of the VFS demo reels from the 3D Animation and Visual Effects students, and they looked amazing. That was the major factor contributing me to go to the school.
I did many things prior to going to VFS, because I knew it would be a lot of hard work to garner all the money I needed to get to go there. I talked the admissions adviser and a student who graduated from VFS. But the adviser didn't say anything bad about the school and the student was hand-picked by the school to give a testimony to me.
My previous experience was 10 years worth of art training and 2 years worth of software training at the public college I attended. I had basic understanding of the software that the school used and thought it would be beneficial if I went there with some of the skills I acquired from my other school.
The program is broken down into 6 terms. The first 2 terms deal with 3D modeling and animating, texturing, life drawing, classical animation and visual storytelling. The third term deals with the same but most of it with concept development for your demo reel. The last 3 terms of the program deal with your demo reel, and you go to a presentation once every month to showcase you work and get critique. The last term, though, is more for rendering.
The best things that I can think of about the school are the people. I've meet some really great people there. VFS is an international school, and you meet people from everywhere. It's a great multicultural environment and has a few nice teachers. Sadly, I can't name too many good things about the school other than that.
VFS has so many bad things that as I am about to the name them off, they might make me sound like a frivolous, disgruntled student who never worked hard there or someone who just likes to complain. I am being 100% honest, and I am writing this to warn prospective students, especially the international ones. I have a duty to get my story out and warn other people. I do feel that what VFS is doing is a crime, and if my experience of VFS can better inform people about the school, I will have less of a burden on myself. Saving people from an unbelievable amount of debt and heartache is why I am doing this.
The cost to go there is beyond reasonable. The tuition is 55,000 dollars for international students and 35,500 dollars for Canadian/landed immigrant students. That's not even including the living expenses, which is another 13,000 dollars. Each year they seem to raise the tuition more and more. I've seen some international students pay over 68,000 just for that one year. And some of these international students had to save for that money in a different currency and work for years. Try converting that into Mexican pesos.
The curriculum at the school is so frolicsome. While you are there at the school, you are taking some many courses you don't need, from life drawing to classical animation to visual storytelling to character design. They were a complete waste of time, and they always got in the way of other work that was more important. Recently, since I had last checked the site, they changed their curriculum and got rid of a few courses. They also fired a few really bad teachers. The school doesn't like other people to know how bad a lot of the students complain about the school, and at the end of each term, they get all the students to write reviews about the courses they are taking and the school tries to revamp them. But they really haven't been taking it that seriously.
One of the biggest problems with the school is the marketing ploy. VFS spends millions of dollars a year on creating this perfect image of the school, showing all these great reels with the great posters and VFS logos. This marketing is how they are literally getting hoards of people around the world to go to Vancouver and spend a gargantuan of money. They have been doing this for years unrepentantly. A lot of the students never spoke out against the school over the misleading information the school advisers told them. What the school doesn't want you to know is that all those amazing reels came from people with previous experience and who had taught themselves before they went there. There are a few circumstances of when some students were able to pull of some good reels in the year and they had a bare amount of experience. Even in this rare circumstance, their success was not because of the school. VFS wants to take the successes of other students who are talented and hardworking and exploit the student's success and talent until they find another reel to showcase the school.
The school 100% owns your demo reel when you are done. This is one of the worst things about the school. They can take your reel and use it however they like in their marketing scam, further contributing to the VFS delusion. They have you sign a copyright distribution release form at the start of the year and another one I think at the end of the year.
The time spent at VFS is so minuscule. One year is not enough time to learn everything you need and so much of your time is spent on frivolous projects that don't contribute to you getting a job. The scary thing about VFS is that the school is literally like a factory pumping students out or a vampire sucking their victim dry of money as quickly as possible. It's unreal when you think about ”¦ treating people's hopes and dreams like a commodity or a meal.
The school doesn't do anything that you can't do for yourself. They teach bare minimum of anything at all. They lie about their job placement rate. If you go, you'll find out how many in your class will actually get a job. Some classmates will already be extremely advanced and will more than likely get a job once they graduate but others who don't have that talent and think that school will wave a magic wand and make them a great artist think again. When it comes to being a great artist, the best teacher in the world is you. Did Leonardo di Vinci or Michelangelo go to some prissy school to be the geniuses they were? No. They worked hard, experimented and loved what they did. If you have the sort of dedication, you can do anything you want. All the best artists, 3D artists and 2D artists were self-taught and used tutorials. Why spend all that money for a piece of paper when you can do it at home a 1/100th of the cost and get more of an education.
The class size at VFS has increased a lot in the last 5 years or so. I think they added 8 new seats to a term since 2004. They used to have like 22 in a class. When I was there, it was 30 to a class, but now it's 32. They are literally trying to squeeze as many students into a class as possible. They barely had enough space as it is, and they added 2 more. The school was saying about how popular the school is and how they wanted to increase the class size. I was baffled at how greedy the school is. Since they were able to convince many people that the school was great, they claimed VFS to be popular.
VFS has some up-to-date equipment and lots of computers and they were supposed to have added a render farm. I imagine they would try to get the best equipment, considering the amount of money it takes to go there. But students have to complain enough or the school will just slack off and do nothing at all.
It's hectic and just flat out crazy in that school. You have to be there to experience it. The whole program is disorganized. Good luck finding a computer to render your frames for your end of term presentations. The term presentations are a waste of time, too. The teachers just there and talk out of their behind at your stuff. Most of the student's would rather be working on other important things. Altogether, roughly 2 weeks or more of your time at that school is just sitting there at inconsequential presentations. They always make a big deal out of presentations and going to class; and if you miss a certain amount of class even if you hand everything in on time, they will kick you out no questions asked. Teachers there can be cruel too and give you a mark of zero even if something is 5 minutes late and they act all superior over it, even though you are paying their salary, and you are the customer””I mean, student. A few of the teachers are not that bad about time delays and handing things in on time. The industry doesn't care about marks or what school you went too. That's the 100% truth.
I wouldn't recommend this school to anyone who is serious about the animation industry. I would also definitely not recommend this place to international students. VFS loves international students. Ninety percent of all the students there are from abroad, and I guess they think international students are easier to trick. Most international students go there to just get the diploma so they can stay and work in Canada.
If you want to learn everything you need to be a 3D artist, go to digital tutors (digitaltutors.com) or animation mentor or other online ways of learning. Also, go and download some tutorials from torrents. Many people post free tutorials too. But if you want to spend all the money and waste all that time and you are rich and have the money, go to VFS. You have nothing to lose, but if you are poor and hardworking and you are working 2 jobs like I did, I would severely advise you to reconsider.
I am not working at all right now. I am working a minimum wage job and am still working on my reel that isn't done yet.
I would've listened to the art reviews on this website about VFS. I read one about VFS for the 3D Animation and Visual Effects program from a guy who had the “VFS: A Risky Investment” review. His review was a very honest and truthful one. This was a month before I started, and I was really concerned on whether or not he was right. In the end, it turns out he was, and it was lots of regret and hurt that transpired after that.
I had high expectations for this school, and I had a lot of faith in this school. I've meet so many nice people there at the school but such low quality in teaching and compassion destroyed a lot of my hope in human beings. VFS is a business, not a school. At the end of the day, your money meant more to VFS than your well being and dreams. I find that very rude and inhuman. I've heard many horror stories of students that spent all that money and were jobless at the end of the year and in so much debt they weren't able to live adequately for a while because of student loan payments. Some had chronic stress and depression, a lot of which I am still dealing with today.
If you have read this far, you know where I stand on VFS or any other school. I am not against schooling in general but people have been trying to capitalize on the phenomena of the CGI marvel.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, I'd be happy to answer.

Thanks for reading.


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