Post-secondary Education Curriculum to become an Experiment or a Mad?

MST3K Central
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Two ways to play!

1- straight up if you wanted to be a shuttled off of this ball of dirt and into a life of luxury and plastic pals who are fun to be with, where do you apply? What courses do you take? What micro and macro skills does one need to acquire, and in what way does the nascent ability, interest, what-else-could-they-be-good-for reveal itself early in life? For the dungeon-dwelling middle management types, er, same, mostly. DeVry? University of Phoenix? Community College? Adult Enrichment through a community center?

OR, option 2- (ok yes this is the actual bouncy brain inspiration for this thread)
As I think of what my career and day job entail (Iā€™m about to be looking again I think, so itā€™s on my mind, though what I want is time and money to return to school ahem), the micro and macro skills of illustration, drawing, painting, cg, various digital etcā€¦ along with my traditional backgroundā€¦ then with courses in industrial design, animation, illustration, model building, etc etc etcā€¦ and hobbyist work with pro friends who are puppeteers etcā€¦ got me to wondering, if someone wanted to plot an educational and early career path straight to the SOL (or very similar) as host, mad, evil-lackey-of-the-week, putter-of-words-into-mouths, satellite ā€˜maintenanceā€™, bot fluffing, etc., then youā€™ve got writing, set, prop, puppet fabrication, production, acting, puppeteering, singing/voice, stage work, etc etc etcā€¦

Much like my own background and fields, itā€™s a bit tough to navigate a straight line, everyone takes a different route to so much, but still curious what advice youā€™d give (I know my answersā€¦),. How does one minor in snark? Or is that more an elective? And how much poli-sci, philosophy, electrical engineering, and ā€˜summer theaterā€™ do you throw in? :wink:

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Obviously, youā€™d go to the University of Minnesota to find your calling, much like the great Peter Graves!

Joking aside, though, a good bit of engineering and general mechanics knowledge is probably a good place to start. Otherwise, you end up with inventions like Lawn Baby. (Sorry, Frank.) Even when you donā€™t do invention exchanges, like Pearl, or steal other peopleā€™s ideas, like Kinga, youā€™ve still gotta know what to do when thereā€™s a malfunction or error in your van-rocket/moonbase/what have you.

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Industrial arts!

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When I went back to school I had to decide between Mad Science and Archaeology. On the one hand, I routinely unearth cursed artifacts and unleash unspeakable horrors from before the dawnatime, which is fun, but I do sometimes look at the road not travelled. I mean, thereā€™s nothing stopping me from outfitting someone in a jumpsuit and blasting them into space, but it would be a lot easier if I had that Mad Science background.

Oh, wait. Were you talking about getting a career on a show like MST3K? Ha, ha, ha! So was I. Yep. Pay no attention to the giant bone-shaped object in my back yard.

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Well just grab a towel, stick out your thumb and hope the Heart of Gold picks you upā€¦ Oh and donā€™t forget your twelve pints at lunchtime.

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Seems to me that all the hosts were unfortunate enough to ā€œluckā€ into it. So, it seems if you just meander your way through life, you could be forced into these experiments against your will, too! (Sorry, thatā€™s rather bleak but calling it like I see it)

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