If you're seriously looking into character animation, I reccomend Maya, (of corse :p ) or XSI, you can usually pick up educational lab licenses pretty reasonable. 3DS max with character studio may also be an option. For serious character animation, and a solid foundation behind it, I'll say I have my doubts...for example Gnomon3d.com is a CG school, and their "Fast track program" runs like 270 hours. The learning curve is pretty extreme. For 2D stills, PS is an excellent choice. Fireworks is nice for vector drawing...but more suited to web design stuff. (making buttons etc.) You may consider, if possible for "Character animation" to be a second (or third) year course, with something like "3D fundamentals" and or Computer Graphics to be a first year. My 3 cents -Modulok-