If it's really an art degree for animation, you probably should stick with the Mac platform. That's kind of standard in that particular industry, and you'll appreciate the cleanness and security of the OS. I guess you COULD get a Macbook Pro, but I think an iMac would be a better value... bigger screen, way more horsepower, and it won't cook a hole through your desk (that's an exaggeration of course but you know what I mean...). I'm writing this to you now on my 2011 27" iMac; a machine I've owned for almost two years now and it's served me exceptionally well in that time: 1 TB of storage, a GORGEOUS screen with wide viewing angles and extremely accurate coloration, and for a desktop it's remarkably portable. The thing has an aluminum body, so it's actually pretty durable once you cover the glass front of it. Keep in mind that the new smaller iMacs don't let you access the RAM (without an EXTREME amount of disassembly) so you should either get the latest 27" model or one of the 2011 models for cheaper, which are still pretty powerful computers. Two years on, my iMac is still a real beast for modern games (PlanetSide 2, Battlefield 3, StarCraft 2, etc.) so you get a lot of power in the machine. Oh, and the site I linked to is a great source for finding out when Apple is [u][i]likely[/i][/u] to next update their computers. Hope that helps! ;)