I have just graduated from Durham and I found that all in all it was a miserable experience.
First off they promise that you will learn all those amazing things you have heard about and that you dream of doing. Once you have paid you become another number. You are shoehorned into the same box as everyone else in the program. There is little to NO true creativity, we made the same models, the same animations and the same films as everyone else. You will never learn what it was that brought you there, and if you want to, they won’t have those programs and they will tell you to go buy them on your own.
The key to the program and how to do well is to take advantage of the rampant favoritism that comes from the instructors. If you are an attractive female with half exposed breasts and can giggle your way through an evening of beers you will go far. But if you spend long hours in front of computers that constantly crash and a faulty network you will get nowhere.
Much of the inequality is due to the (now former) program coordinator who was frequently compared to the occupying force of 40′s Germany. It’s amazing that a film editor with very little knowledge of animation could be given control of a whole animation program but alas he was and my tuition money is just another mistake made on the road of higher education.
My suggestion is to AVOID DURHAM COLLEGE LIKE A LEPER COLONY!!! it is a miserable school with no culture, no fun, no creativity and a group of if you can’t do, teach! teachers. There are of course a few standouts but not enough.
Ontario is now full of schools offering Animation programs, do your homework wisely before you choose.