-Take full advantage of the facilities your tuition is paying for. You may not have access to anything anywhere near as up to date or available when you graduate. Learn all of those computer programs on your spare time (even if not required by any classes).
-Buy your computer equipment and programs senior year. Student discounts are amazing compared to what you’ll have to pay after you graduate. You’ll have a good headstart if you want to start freelancing or wait until you grad to do your portf.
-Look for internships as early as possible, even if not paid. Invaluable experience. School won’t teach you what’s needed on the job, only the job will. Getting a chance to sneak a peak when it doesn’t cost the company anything is still a good investment that will pay off tremendously when you get out.
-Take out whatever loans you need, don’t spend your studio/ learning/ practicing time flippin burgers for workstudy.
-Like everyone else says, sketch, sketch, sketch. I wouldn’t spend too much time in the model shop unless necessary for a functional model. A lot of jobs don’t spend the time making photo models, they’ll shop it out to dedicated model-makers and sculptors. ID guys draw, it’s the fastest, companies want fast results. Get good at it.
-Focus on the quality of your concepts, not the quality of your computer model. If you spend 20 hrs on the computer modelling up a bad concept, you wasted 19 hrs. You could have thumbnailed more and refined your concept to something stellar with that time. If you’re just doing something quick to practice your 3-d modelling, then that’s okay. But don’t put it in your portfolio if you want design work.
-I’ll come back with some more when I think of them. Good luck to all, I wish I could go back to school knowing what I know now.