CompuServe Messages

Below is a letter that I have sent out to many companies and colleges requesting information about what I should major in to work for them. I am not completely sure your school offers this, I think I may have to create my own major. But as I mention in my letter this is very fustrating to me because I keep getting pointed in the wrong direction. I was wondering if you could offer some suggestions or thoughts as how to solve my problem? I realize this technology is new, and many colleges don't teach it yet, but I am hoping to find one that does. But I am also worried that this may not be what I want, but I can't find anywhere to visit to see if it is or not. Even going in undeclared I still need an area of study. Please help. Thanks. ——————————————————————————- ——————————— I am going to be a senior in high school this coming September. Along with becoming a senior comes the decision of choosing a college and a field of study to major in. This presents a problem for me. I have very diverse interests in everything from basket weaving and glass blowing to photography and computers. I have decided that whatever I do it will have to be using computers, or I will not be happy. And no matter how much a job pays I want to be happy doing it. I have sort of narrowed down what I would like to do to the point where I can describe it, but I have yet to find an official title for it and therefore have a tough time looking at colleges. My main interest right now is in computer graphics. I would like to work on movies and commercials doing special effects. Mostly I would like to do the digital image processing that most movies couldn't do without right now. I would like to learn how to do the scenes in Terminator 2, The Abyss, and Jurassic Park to name a few. Also the commercials, the Polar Bears on ice skates and Paula Abdul dancing with Groucho Marx, and others far after their deaths. The kind of stuff you do in Autodesk 3D Studio, and on Silicon Graphics computers. I know it is very new technology and that most companies invent it as they need it, but what about those of us who would like to go into that field? What background do I need. Are there colleges that teach this? If I came and applied for a job at your company what background would you want me to have? I thought that Graphic Arts was what I wanted. So I attended the Summer Graphic Arts experience put on by Rochester Institute of Technology. While the program was interesting to me, it concentrated mostly on printing and press work. I did get to see a lot of nice computer systems, and learn a lot about prepress work, but I didn't see what I am interested in except for a little still image manipulation on Scitex systems. Computer graphics isn't strictly what I am interested in though, I would probably be just as interested in the other special effects used in movies. Walt Disney World just amazes me. They way they can run everything, so consistently, with such high quality just blows my mind. I especially like the fountain show and the Illuminations laser light show. I would also enjoy putting those shows together with the computers choreographing the fountains, lasers, lights, fireworks, and music. I would be interested in any information you can provide me with about your company. I would like to know what kind of people you hire and what they majored in, in college? You don't have to suggest specific colleges, although it would be helpful, just specific majors that I can search for in colleges. I am seriously considering RIT as one of the main colleges I want to apply to but I need a major first. There are colleges out in California that may teach what I want, [continued in the reply]