SPCR

Ok I am now inspired! Silent hill was so awesome that im considering dropping out of school and writting/directing horror movies. Vote if you have an opinion on this. Horror movies really are my passion and ive long wanted to do something like this but its just so risky while college is more of a sure thing.

No vote, but not pursuing your dreams often leads to great resentment later in life. Why not both?

Education is always good. Have horror-movies for hobby while your studying

No vote - I reckon you can do both. I did my full time masters while doing a number of jobs and always managed to juggle the two. Later, with only one job, and working on a PhD I started a business school course and the course related effort came in bursts just like with my masters... so I reckon it's possible to go to business school AND do something else on the side because of the bursty nature of the effort required. It's not easy - and sometimes very tough, but it's do-able.

EDIT: Actually, I'm going to vote "Business School" - because it is possible to do both and you should never "drop out".. so if you've already started it then finish it.

I was making a somewhat similar decision recently, so I guess I'll pitch in. For the record, mine was about taking the year off, not dropping out altogether.

I guess what you have to ask yourself is, if a new school term was to start tomorrow, would you be looking forward to it? Would it teach what you like to do most? (sorry, there are no degrees in gaming afaik) Would you be happy to have that challenge in front of you, or are you just there to get a degree the society approves of and get the heck out?

On the other hand, are you able to sustain yourself if you go for the movies thing? While I'd be the first to blast the "more moneys is better" attitude, having a bed to sleep on and bread to eat is nice.

We can't make this decision for you... I guess you have to decide if business is what you want to be doing, and on the other hand if going movies has a real future.

I'd say do both.

If you havent read it already, Robert Rodriquez wrote a good book about making el mariachi on a tiny budget.

Good thing about eductation is long holidays! Time to pursue this sort of thing.

sorry, there are no degrees in gaming afaik

Not in gaming per se, but game design, definitely:

Video game college is 'boot camp' for designers

I think you shouldn't drop out, horror movies fans will still be there in a few years. Stoping your studies and going back to college in a few years will probably be harder.

I can provide you with a link, it's more about the dilemma between job-that-you-like / job-that-feeds-you but I think you can relate to this :
How to do what you love, by Paul GRAHAM

They have theatre programs in college.. right?

ddd

I say drop out and go for it. Who knows, if you get good enough, maybe you can get Natalie Portman to star in one of your movies!

See ralf gives good advice Nah I was mainly kidding I wouldnt drop out but it does seem very pointless. Its like the guy said above its mainly just going to school to get a piece of paper so I can get a job that pays more than 6-7 an hour. Its really bullcrap, couldnt they just have a little quiz at whatever job your applying for instead of making someone go to school for 4-8 years and wasting thousands of dollars. Deep down I really want to do something artistic, I would love to be in the gaming industry but that seems even more far fetched than the movie industry somehow. Maybe ill just write a little bit and see how that works out. In the mean time I guess the business thing is just trying to make more money while sacrificing my happiness

How much do you know about making movies, what do you want to do in the industry, and will you have to / are you willing to relocate if necessary?

Directing a movie isn't something that can easily be done without a lot of experience in other areas. If you don't have any experience, go to business school at a university with a film program and help out on their student films. You may also want the business skills to be able to finance your movies, since nobody shells out money for films directed by people with no experience.

Writing is a bit easier to get into, since you're essentially just cranking scripts out and waiting for people to buy them on spec. So long as you're reasonably well connected (and your writing doesn't suck), you should have a chance at selling scripts. Just be aware that you need to be at good at selling them as you are at writing them.

I say that you should do a quick sanity check: can you afford to drop out now, and support yourself until your movie is done? If so, go for the movie!

Of course, inspiration level is a personal thing, but I wanted to do stuff like that before and during college. My thought was, I'll get my degree, then start working on whatever pet project had my fancy at the time, and ultimately be able to make a living doing pet projects.

Well, it's been almost five years since I graduated, and I'm still working for the man in a regular job.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy, nor do I have any regrets. It's just that college put me in touch with an internship, and the internship put me into my current job.

The point is, once you get so far into college, there's a lot of inertia to continue down the "traditional" path.

But you can always come back to college, if the movie thing flops.

It's interesting when you look at some of the world's most successful people---many of them are in fact college dropouts (e.g. Bill Gates).

Other successful dropouts include Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for South Park. If you're not aware, check out their first movie, Cannibal! The Musical. This is the movie that caused them to drop out of school (i.e. they were spending too much time on the movie and not enough in class).

That's my $0.02.

Matt

You might want to read Bruce Campbell's book, "If Chins Could Kill" which is all about his early experience on the Evil Dead movies.

Think of the business school knowledge as a tool to do whatever you want later. Just because you get that degree doesn't lock you into a specific career path.

Usually I do not give advices, it is your life, you do with it whatever you want. But I came across this particular question many times myself, had some tough time, and, finally, here is the advice:

• Don't drop anything. If you decided to do it, finish it.
  Never ignore education. Never drop education. Study anything that comes your way.

If you do things this way, in a few years the result will be that you will know far more than people around you and you will have respect for yourself for actually finishing everything you started. Both of those things together will help you do whatever you choose to do later on, even if it is completely unrelated to whatever you studied. It is the experience of going through it that counts more.