Published: Nov. 3, 1996

BY GLENN LOVELL Mercury News Staff Writer

As National Merit Scholars, they had a fair number of options. He could have played football for Princeton; she could have gone to Harvard or West Point.

After reviewing alternatives, Will Kerslake and Tasha Wassink, both 18, opted for high tech over hallowed halls and enrolled at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale.

Though the name Cogswell draws blank stares in some quarters, it didn't take the two honor students long to decide on the school, which, since introducing computer animation four years ago, has shot to the top of Pixar's and Pacific Data Imaging's recruiting lists.

Kerslake, from Beaverton, Ore., plans on a career in game design and computer effects; Wassink, of Merrill, Wis., also envisions doing computer graphics for a game company in four years.

They wanted hands-on experience and a serious selection of high-end hardware. Cogswell, stocked with Silicon Graphics and PC workstation, had the goods.

''I was really surprised at the number of computers available, and all the 3-D software,'' says Kerslake, already moonlighting on a fighting game he hopes to market with three Portland friends. ''That, and the school's proximity to the top companies, sold me on it.''

Add to this a lecture roster that includes such giants in the field as Rex Grignon (''Batman Forever,'' ''Toy Story''), Dr. Alvy Ray Smith (''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''), and Iain McCaig (currently working on the super-hush-hush ''Star Wars'' prequel) -- and you've got an industrial-power magnet.

A school grows up

Cogswell was founded as a San Francisco high school by dentist Henry Cogswell in 1887. It became a junior college in 1932, and expanded to a four-year engineering school in the '70s. It relocated to Cupertino in 1985.

Two years ago Cogswell moved to its current home in Sunnyvale (a single-floor complex of offices and classrooms located off the Mathilda exit of Highway 101) and added the School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Operating on an annual budget of $4 million, the non-profit institution now has 16 full-time faculty, 46 adjunct instructors, and 450 students -- 144 of whom are majoring in computer and video imaging (CVI). (Seventy-five percent of the school's operating expenses come from tuition; 20 percent from interest on the original endowment; 3 percent from private donations.)

''We started (CVI) with five students,'' recalls Tim Harrington, 33, who chairs the department. ''One of the students was a bouncer at a local nightclub. He's now working for Intel.''

Predicting ''a huge boom in 3-D gaming'' brought on by the Nintendo 64 and the first 3-D Mario game, Harrington expects computer animation to eventually grow to 60-70 percent of the student population.

While there are other computer-animation schools -- such as Toronto's Sheridan College and the Ringling (Fla.) School of Art & Design -- Cogswell's integrated-media program is more comprehensive. Also, it has the distinction of being the first -- and still only -- college in North America to offer a bachelor of arts degree in computer and video imaging.

''It used to be that parents discouraged their kids from going to art school because they weren't employable,'' observes Harrington, who joined Cogswell in 1990. ''People see (us) as a viable career path: You can walk out of here with strong art skills as well being technically literate. (Graduates) learn how to create figures, tell a story and makes things move -- paint digital landscapes.''

The big time

Dramatic testament to this: Cogswell's job-placement board. It's layered with fliers from all the heavy hitters -- Disney, DreamWorks SKG, Digital Domain and, in San Rafael, George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. There's even a form promising (computer animation) ''Work in China.''

A degree from Cogswell is almost as good as a letter of introduction from one of the two Stevens -- Spielberg or Jobs. ''It's very directed toward being part of the industry,'' agrees freshman Wassink. ''The classes are all very focused.''

Which is why the school is to digital entertainment what Stanford University is to business administration. With sophisticated demo reels under their arms, recent grads have gone on to high-paying ($50,000-plus) entry jobs at ILM and Pixar.

David Rader, class of '94, impressed the folks at Pacific Data Imaging with a 2-1/2-minute computer-animated Venus flytrap. He now handles PDI's Pillsbury Doughboy and Kraft cheese commercials.

Roger Rose left one credit shy of a degree when Pixar Animation Studios in Point Richmond asked him to lend a hand on a little something called ''Toy Story.'' Bob Deaver -- who ''finagled myself two years' worth of classes'' -- is happily animating M&M's for Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Ore.

Former classmates Rader and Rose are now locked in friendly competition as computer animators on the highly touted ''Bugs'' (Pixar) and ''Ants'' (PDI), both due in '98.

Rose, 33, had definite criteria in picking a school: It had to be in Silicon Valley and have plenty of PCs. Cogswell limits class size to 12 and maintains a 1:1 computer-student ratio.

''I took their (pre-enrollment) tour and thought the place was really cool,'' Rose recalls. ''There were more computers than I'd ever seen before in a building. I was coming from a classroom where you had to wait in line to use a Mac. Here, you could get on a computer any time you wanted.''

Rader, 26, was in the market for a school that would draw on his technical and artistic skills. ''The first half of the (Cogswell) program was really good,'' he says. ''The second half was less organized -- many teachers were off working on their own projects -- but it worked. I'm here (at PDI). I'm happy.''

Harrington says Cogswell has earned hard-fought respect in the industry by being one of the only schools to balance art and computer science. ''What's missing at the other (computer programming) schools is attention to artistic detail,'' adds Harrington.

Once the school added a degree in CVI in 1992, companies like DreamWorks and ILM began to look to it for prospective employees who can program and think creatively.

''Our ideal students are fledgling Leonardo da Vincis -- heavy into art and science,'' says Harrington. ''Our first students weren't that artistic; they were artist wannabes. We needed a balance: technical people who were artistic.''

To this end, Cogswell made sketching and figure drawing required courses for CVI majors. The instantly popular ''Drawing for Animation'' was added this fall.

Making the grade

Upgrading the two-year technical college to a four-year degree school (with required courses in math, English and science) was not without its problems. In the summer of 1991, the school applied for accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

''They said, "No -- we don't understand this (program of study). Where's the industry? Where's the job market?'' recalls Harrington during a tour of computer-lined classrooms and editing benches.

Cogswell, turned down by WASC, applied again in the fall. This time the school took the offensive.

''We said, "You've heard of Disney, Warner Bros., Time Warner?' '' Harrington says, chuckling. ''Basically, we just started dropping names to them.''

And this time WASC said yes to Cogswell.

Tuition at Cogswell -- which bills itself as ''the third lowest (tuition) private school in California'' -- is $3,660 (per trimester) for full-time U.S. residents, and $4,740 for non-residents. Individual courses range from $152 to $305, depending on whether you're earning credit or auditing.

At a Cogswell presentation last spring, guest speaker Catherine Foulkes of DreamWorks' Animation applauded the school's mix of traditional art and digital media. ''Cogswell has by far the best degree program for learning digital art that I've seen,'' Foulkes said.

Art. . .