text: You probably need to think first about what PART of advertising you want to go into.  There are two main sides to any advertising agency.  The "account side" and the "creative side".  The account side is sales people, account managers, relationship managers, etc.  The creative side is designers, writers, editors, creative directors, all the typical video / film type people (directors, sound techs, etc), and those sorts.  Agencies also have the corporate business functions like accounting and HR, but that probably isn't what you're looking for.\n\nIf your interest is on the creative side, you probably want to look for specialty programs for the area you're looking for.  Develop your "art" at the same time you develop your knowledge of advertising.\n\nIf your interest is on the account side, then you want to probably look for a school with a program that will give you good advertising theory, but you'll also want to make sure you're getting steeped in "business" in general.  You need to know some about project management, accounting, finance, marketing, etc. - all the things "business people" are concerned with because those are the people you work with.\n\nIf you are interested in advertising, I would also suggest that you look into the different fields of "marketing."  It sounds like you're in high school so those two words may sound like they mean the same thing, but marketing is much more broad than advertising.  Marketers concern themselves with all decisions pertaining to the "four P's" - Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  Advertising falls into the promotion P but marketing people also deal with pricing studies, product attributes and development, portfolio mixes, marketing research, etc.  A marketing person is the one who might decide, for instance, that in order to maximize profits for a brand, the price needs to be higher.  But in order to increase the price, the image may need to be brougt more upscale than it currently is.  So they'll work with the packaging people to make nicer packaging, they may work with product development to add features or other value, and they'll tell the advertising agency what the objective is for the advertising needed.  The agency then goes and develops ads that, hopefully, will do what is needed.\n\nMarketing and advertising are far more complex than they seem at first because at the end of the day, there is big money and serious business involved.  But they're exhilerating, exciting fields also.\n\nBTW, there is very little advertising happening in Vermont.  Some, but not much.  If you're looking to build a big career in advertising, you're most likely going to need to do it in a large city, and if your career clicks and you really start moving and shaking, you'll have to be in a major market like New York or Chicago.\n\nGood luck!