Hey All,
Since I'm a graduate of NCSA, I thought I'd add my $0.02.
Toul's comments are pretty much on the
mark. Whenever I'm having any sort of stress in my life it is usually reflected as nightmares about the unpleasantness of my time at NCSA. I am very carefull who I recommend to go there. You have to know who you are already, its not a place to "find yourself".
As for the "attitude", its absolutely there. You have to understand though that they (those who run the joint) are building a technician/artisan/artist who can succeed in a high dollar, high stress "professional" end of the industry. Sorry if that sounds a little arogant. But if your looking to hire a laid back technician, an NCSA graduate isn't built for your environment anyway - so don't sweat it.
Now 14 years out of the place (nothing ever looked better in the rear view mirror), I can say with "attitude" that my professional peers coming out of other universities were profoundly unprepared by their teachers/schools to
tackle daily challenges that I was trained to handle as a matter of course. Not meant to be arrogant, to the contrary, I feel that most university training for technicians and artists (specifically undergrad) is SHAMEFULLY little more than remedial learning or mindless slavery to dubious grad design programs.
Dollar for dollar, on the average college campus, is the
theatre technician getting the same
level of seriousness in training as his classmates in the Engineering building? If you're honest, you know the answer is "No". AND they both will leave University of Wherever with an identical debt-load. Yet, the Engineer will have a $50K entry
level job waiting for him. So, who got ripped-off?? Frankly, if you're not getting trained to kick a$$ 24/7, you're getting trained to starve a whole bunch.
Flame suit ON!
John O.