@Aikibujin Ouch, yeah, having to balance with other responsibilities and learning is difficult. Now that I’m out of school I don’t have that problem, but for you it’s probably okay if you don’t push yourself too hard on Japanese when you’re not on break. Not that you shouldn’t study at all, but even if you just study one or two things each day, maybe you can keep yourself immersed so when you’re on break you can jump back into heavier studying more easily.

@Igmdigm I haven’t used Flash myself since high school, and from what I hear the program has changed a lot since then. My more recent experience is with Adobe After Effects, though even with that it’s been a year or so since I last touched it. But I have done animations in both in the past. I unfortunately don’t have a working mic setup for Skype right now, not to mention I also have @Eihiko‘s problem (shyness), but I wouldn’t be opposed to giving it a try.

@Eihiko My first tablet was a Graphire which served me well, but alas it bit the dust many years ago which was when I got my Bamboo. Maya is the only 3D modeling software I’ve touched so I can’t personally compare it to anything else, but it’s a bit of a beast- lots of buttons and functions and fifteen different ways to achieve the same results. The good news is, if you have a student email you can sign up on the Autodesk website and download virtually any of their software with a free 3 year student license. You get the whole fully functional program; the only caveat is that when you open a file saved in the student version, it pops up with a window to say this file was saved using a student version of Maya, can only be used for educational purposes, etc. As for rigging, it would be more fun if it wasn’t so easy to run into technical issues that break everything if you can’t figure out how to fix it.

As for the doctor thing, I may be wrong, but I think it’s that せんせい is commonly used for medical doctors and はかせ more for other kinds of doctors/professors or otherwise learned people, though せんせい is acceptable in either case.

どうぞよろしく！ I spotted your introduction earlier (which alas meant I was not able to use the timeless Ohio/Ohayo pun without being redundant). I lived around the Cleveland area for a few years when I was a wee child and I have relatives up there, so I do occasionally find myself up north.

It’s true, the industry is a mess. There are an unfortunate amount of complications and stigma that come with being a girl in the video game industry (or just being a gamer), too. We did do some programming in my class, but it was just a tiny bit of really basic javascript. I lean more toward the visual/art side of things myself; I was an art major before I switched over. But since the whole track was jammed into one set of classes, we had to do a little of everything without actually learning much about how to do any of it. :\ I do still have some interest in game development, but the experience killed my desire to try and shoulder my way into what would probably be a very competitive and high-stress industry, especially since right now I’ve dabbled in a variety of things but I’m not good enough at any one skill to use it professionally. But you know, I do love games, and in the (probably very) long run it would be cool to translate Japanese video games. As for you, I know programming is a sought-after skill in pretty much any computer-related industry, AI even more so, so even if what you’re using is outdated I imagine you’ll make out okay. (Hopefully it’s something you enjoy too, if you’re getting a master’s in it!)

As for my userpic, that’s not actually me (if only I were that pretty), so you’re in the clear as far as insulting my dog. He’s a Japanese actor and singer by the name of Miura Ryosuke (and that’s his family dog Manda). I’m a pretty big fan of his. I do have a dog though, but rather than a lap-sized cute thing he is a large cute lazy lump.

Uhhh what else. I’m bad at coming up with decent conclusions. ごめん。