AIE vs Qantm

I am now a Qantm student. I studied at JMC Academy before. Compared to the Qantm your talking about Qantm has now GREATLY improved and is really pretty awesome. JMC SUCKS I say this because I went to it before Qantm and the first day I saw how much Qantm surpassed JMC by miles.

At Qantm now we have great teachers who know their stuff and have and are still working in the industry. I am doing animation, but we are at the same building as SAE so we have access to all their tools as well. They are still working on improving it more, but at the moment it is pretty damn good.

The thing I hated about JMC was the structure and the lack in teachers know how skills. they knew how to do it for themselves but couldn't teach us how to do it. they can show us, but they would show it as if we already knew what was going on.

I didn't learn anything. I went to Qantm and on the first week I understood Maya and I had never used it before.

Qantm is good now, but will get better. They have dedicated art rooms now which in the future are hoping to hold life drawing classes there on a regular basis for students. as well as being able to borrow almost anything (take home) including wacom tablets

The fact QANTM made you think you understand Maya on the first week is somewhat worrying... and probably an indication that you should go and study at a real school.

As for their teachers, try the programming department if you want a cheap laugh...

The strength of learning is understanding how much you don't know and the underlying principles of what you should be doing, learning Maya for Maya's sake is meaningless. How much color theory have they taught you, what about the basics of animation? how much art education are you really getting? if you don't know to ask the right questions everyone can, with a few big words and some nice explosions, seem like an expert.

From my experience QANTM isn't worth the money you'll waste on it.

I just finished my degree last year and I can tell you flat out that Qantm is a pretty big waste of time and money.

First off, I studied animation, and I should tell you that throughout the course I always did my best and attempted to get the best grades possible. I was not lazy, I was super motivated and I was not a bad artist, in fact Id go so far as to say I was one of the best ones that year. Regardless of my efforts, I have finished my degree and was left with an incomplete skillset and with nowhere to go. There are 3 reasons for this.

1.) If you know anything about next gen games you'll know that Normal Maps are an insanely important and thus, as an artist, to be able to make them is an equally important skill. This means learning Zbrush or Mudbox (preferably Zbrush, as it is industry standard) to make high poly sculptures for normal map projection. Qantm does NOT teach you any of that. They will give you 2 tutorials throughout the ENTIRE degree where you are given the opportunity to learn how to use Mudbox, but that is the extent of it. So, that means you would have to learn this program and these skills entirely in your own time whilst you are there OR after you finish your degree. (That is one major issue in its own, but furthermore,;Qantm claims to be cutting edge and up to date with course material which is obviously total B.S.)

2.)There are crap all jobs in Australia, so you're probably going to have to go abroad, but wait, it gets better, ill explain further on. You all know that Krome and other companies have recently shut down, sending hundreds of talented and experienced developers out into the industry in search of jobs, and that there has been a significant DECREASE in jobs at most studios around the country. So now you're being sent out there into a country FULL of experienced, professional and talented developers, eager to take any job on offer, leaving the inexperienced and wanting-to-get-a-foot-in-the-door guys out of luck (oh and theres also another 100 + students being pushed out, in what ever field your interested in, in Brisbane alone, EVERY year). 'But that's ok, Ill just go to the US! There's plenty of jobs there!' you say? Well unfortunately not, at least not if you go to Qantm. You see in the states, as I found out 3/4 of the way through my degree, Qantms degree is NOT recognized, and so you will NOT be permitted a visa to go work there, unless maybe you happen to have 4 years of industry experience, which as I pointed out before, is impossible to get in Australia.

3.) You're paying to go study in a hole. If you have any preconceived idea about qantm being some flashy uni with modern campus, great up-to-date hardware and software, brilliant lecturers from within the games industry and cutting edge course material, well sorry to disillusion you, but NOOOOOOOOPE! Qantm Brisbane is 3 floors of an ancient brick building less than twice the size of a tennis court. The furniture is decades old, the SINGLE lecture theater (if you could even call it that) is a pit with chairs strewn across the place, and nearly half the computers have at least one debilitating problem. Of the lecturers, nearly half of them haven't been in the industry for over 10 years, or they NEVER were, in fact some just finish qantm, and immediately start working for them! The course material, for an industry that advances and changes so rapidly, is inexplicably ancient; nearly 7 years old (for some of it)! And as I mentioned before qantm doesn't teach anything about normal mapping, an essential skill as an artist.

Now that said, I still believe that Qantm is the best place to go.... in Australia, and only because I dont know anything about AiE (though I doubt they'd fare much better). But if you are SERIOUSLY going to study games, and seriously want to get a job soon after graduating, go to Canada. Many, many, many studios (and jobs!) there. Many, many, many GREAT media schools there. And its also a great place to live, not to mention its right next door to US who have even more game studios. Obviously it would cost you a fortune to go over there just to study, seeing as you wont even be subsidized by their government, yet alone have Fee-Help. Alternatively, I IMPLORE YOU to buy/acquire DVDs from Gnomon and Eat3d (artists only i guess). You WILL learn everything and more (like 10 times more) than you would by going to qantm, and for less than a third of the price.... In fact, that is what I am doing right now, learning from these instructional videos so I can understand programs like Zbrush and UDK to such an extent that I can use them to compile a folio of work which will show that I have the necessary skills to get into the studios.

As you can see from this essay, I am quite displeased with the quality of....well, EVERYTHING, at Qantm.

Aaaand upon inspection I noticed my third reason is more of a reason why you shouldn't go there and not a reason why I have an incomplete skillset and nowhere to go. :)

A degree by itself won't let. You get a work permit for most countries regardless of where it came from. For the technical requirement of getting an E3 visa, you need to line up a job first in addition to having a degree, and from Australia, unless you already have experience, I would think that this is simply not feasible, as there are competing graduates that do not have visa issues to contend with.

But I am fairly sure that the Qantm degree would fulfill that requirement. Doesn't really make it any easier though.

thanks for the OP.

I been a professional developer for the past 15 years (exactly this year) for the corporates and governments in and around Australia.

I have kind of always wanted to get into games, but never had enough time, being a single dad of 2 small kids, working full-time, educating myself for projects I work on (self or course), having a life, cooking, cleaning, disciplining, ironing and playing games in-between to really say to myself.. "Okay, let me self educate in":
Blender
Maya
3DMax
Illustrator
UDK
Unity3D
Audacity
.. whatever else someone says needs to be understood... the list goes on....
(I am just using these as examples)

One of my confusion points is that being so ingrained in doing code (loads of languages, environments, paradigms, etc.. over the last 15 years), I have found it difficult to find where to start, and, especially where my skills would be best utilised without compromising where I would find satisfaction in applying my skills. I would probably go stir crazy if all I did was something that was not programming related :|

It would probably take me longer to understand all the colour theory in the world (as an exaggerated example), and modelling "stuff" (etc) as opposed to me going, ah, there's a "handle" in "xyz" I can pump out some code for, to use.

I completely understand that the concepts for all the disciplines that make a game need to be gained to be able to perform effectively.. and wish to learn, yet i sit here confused as to where to start, hence my looking into a "games course"... AGAIN....

I had kind of been looking for a course that offers flexibility yet, is class-room based that can offer me the knowledge to be able to say to myself "I understand where I fit in, and can effectively transition from boring enterprise projects, to the more exciting games industry".

I have also seen over the years of peeking at websites, that both AIE and QANTM have more on offer then they previously had in the past, and for me, it has kind of come down to: if either can fulfill what I said above, I would consider taking steps to enrolling, although I really don't need a course to that teaches me how to use MS Word. I would really appreciate a real-world practical course that gives you the theory as its offering so it can be used practically.

I also agree that it is the attitude of the student that takes what is learned and uses it, although, there is also the element of the teacher being able to see that the students need to be taught to be able to get to the end of the curriculum successfully, and the union of both of these making the course and curriculum produce vibrant students.