Good Lord, Education is Expensive.

On and off over the past few months, I've been really thinking about going back to school. The education I got at Green Bay was truly great, and it was definitely a good start to what I want to do. But I feel like it was only really just a start. With every passing month, and especially with every passing year, that education and knowledge just gets farther and farther away. I moved to Minnesota with the intention of getting a job in the field, and potentially taking a few classes at the schools out here. MCAD was always something I wanted to do, but just kind of fell along the wayside. And it's fucking expensive, so there's that. Like, really. The cost of two years alone is comparable to my entire bachelor's degree at GB. Even still, it's hard for me to ignore the want to be a part of it. I feel like it would be a really focused education, whereas Green Bay was a little less so. I mean, MCAD is an ART school. With the more focused coursework, there's also that crap-load of competition. Even now, looking at the Post-Baccalaureate program, I worry about not getting accepted, and that really scares me. I think the hardest thing for me, with wanting to be a graphic designer, is and always has been the fear of failing in comparison to the competition. I've always worried about not having enough talent, and I've had the nasty habit of basing this fear on comparisons to other designers. I've worried that if a client doesn't like something I designed, that I would take it personally, like I wasn't good enough at what I do. It's not like accounting, or something along those lines. There isn't just one way to do this. You need to have talent. You need to have knowledge, and skills, and motivation. It's TERRIFYING. It's definitely a hard thing to keep your head up sometimes. I know I do have some talent, but I still worry (quite frequently) that it isn't going to be enough. I just hope that the motivation and desire to keep pushing through will win out over these fears and insecurities. Do I go for it? Apply with the slim hope of even getting in, and then afterwards if I get in, deal with another $30,000 of debt? Or do I just keep trying to learn slowly on my own? This is rough. Sheesh. Anyway. On a more positive note, I have been working on designing a few things over the past couple weeks, to try to beef up my measly portfolio a bit. I suppose that designing a fake save-the-date or two really isn't that different from the projects they assign you in school. It still showcases your skills, and it's still something you can use in a portfolio. And I figure, by the lack of interest in my applications to places thus far (waaahhhh), that a few new designs couldn't hurt. Fake it 'til you make it, right? :/