Mentors

[Koko Ed]

Some of you guys need to look up MENTOR in the dictionary. Your confusing it with Czar.

The mentors are never appreciated until they're no longer there.

[Daishichimaru]

No, when I say that I'm my own mentor, I mean that. If I have a question, I have to figure it out myself. When I need advice I have to ask myself. If I need assistance I have to suck it up and do it myself. Heck, I don't even have other animators to have to work with. Ah, the bliss that is solitude.

[stevek]

I don't doubt that you have that situation- thats why I started the thread. To see what others are going through. To see what kind of help people have.

I was trying to explain that having mentors is a good thing and you can only go so far on your own. I am constantly put in situations to FIGURE IT OUT in my profession and I deal alot with new media technologies. The second new software comes out I'm forced to get it to stay on top and ahead of the game. So there aren't a lot of people I can turn too. I am forced to piece things together form all the fragments available on the Internet. I often go from not knowing a thing about a subject to being an expert in a day or two.

So all I can say is if you learn how to figure it out (what ever IT happens to be at the moment) good for you. As a mentor- I almost never give the students a straight answer- I try to point them in the right direction but try to have them do research and figure it out.

The goal of this thread was to see what was available to you guys and to see what we can do to improve it for all down the road. I am a professional in the field- But I don't see or hear of too many others out there helping. Just know that help is here if you want it. Many of the Corporations that sponsor teams hire people like me to do work for them- or they are in house at the company them selves. If you ask for help and utilize the resources that are available- maybe Animation will get the respect alot of us want for the program.

With out a steady mentor, there is no way to carry the knowledge from one year to the next. You students need to pass it on and actively look to recruit fellow students that you can train and groom for the successive years. Last year 2 of our three animations graduated. The one remaining didn't have too much experience (even with participating last year) so this year we have a young team w/ 3-freshmen and a sophomore. That puts us in good shape for next 2 years but we need to ensure that there are other following behind.

So if you don't have a mentor- you need to be the mentors. Not to yourself (as a book I read says a man that counsels himself has a fool as an adviser) but to other students. You can motivate yourself and take responsibility and be proactive. But you aren't truly mentoring yourself just by the nature of what a mentor is.