Artsy programmers? Computer-generated art? Only a sophomore? That sounds familiar.
I am and was in a similar situation, but my focus was in music. I was an avid musician in high school and I wanted to dual-major in Computer Science and some kind of music technology. My dream was to go write music software for Propellerheads in Stockholm.
What happened, I found, was that I was a much better programmer than artist. And what's worse was, because I focused a lot my non-computer interests in college, I missed learning a lot of background that I really, really wish I had now — (e.g., advanced operating systems, advanced algorithms, and electrical engineering).
My point is this: You're on this forum and you're already a coder, so focus on getting that Computer Science degree. Since you're interested in visual stuff, a minor concentration in computer graphics or human-computer interaction is applicable. But make sure you learn the hard stuff because, once you do, you'll have strong fundamentals which will let you work on anything and for anyone you want. You won't have to struggle with being an in-betweener like me.
Cannot agree more. Learning the tools is the only real challenge. Once you have sufficient background knowledge in CS, you understand more of the possibilities that your creative juices can draw from.
I'm currently a joint CS/Fine Art major at Concordia University in Montreal (http://computationarts.concordia.ca/). Even though I could have went to a more "prestigious" university, they didn't have a program in creative computation. Don't get stuck in a boring typical CS curriculum. Every professor I meet in the program has been incredibly enthusiastic about what they do, and best of all, since it is a niche program compared to the size of the university, getting time to talk and know your professors is considerably easy.
As far as user-centric design goes: Most of the HCI design stuff can be picked up by just reading books on it. The more you know about human psychology/sociology and its applications to computer interaction the better.
I am and was in a similar situation, but my focus was in music. I was an avid musician in high school and I wanted to dual-major in Computer Science and some kind of music technology. My dream was to go write music software for Propellerheads in Stockholm.
What happened, I found, was that I was a much better programmer than artist. And what's worse was, because I focused a lot my non-computer interests in college, I missed learning a lot of background that I really, really wish I had now — (e.g., advanced operating systems, advanced algorithms, and electrical engineering).
My point is this: You're on this forum and you're already a coder, so focus on getting that Computer Science degree. Since you're interested in visual stuff, a minor concentration in computer graphics or human-computer interaction is applicable. But make sure you learn the hard stuff because, once you do, you'll have strong fundamentals which will let you work on anything and for anyone you want. You won't have to struggle with being an in-betweener like me.