some thoughts for you about school. the animation is good, It will give you some ideas. The life drawing is great.
That aside.

In a informal pole on the cg site you mentioned only 10% of the pro's in the field had any sort of formal training in the field.

I'm in the same boat as you in lots of ways. I'v done a lot of serching hear, there and everywhare for ansers. They are out there. I would sugest you keep looking and informing your self also.

A basic distilation of what I have found:

Do companys care about rather or not you have a degree in CG? mostly NO. Companys don't care becosue it dosn't mean anything to what they are looking for. It sure isn't a garinty of skill. only your demoReal will show that. It does show a little bonuse that you can meat some kind of deadlines. But they would rather have more evidence than a one year deadline to get your thisis demo real done.

They do want to see a killer demo real. Make sure you don't suck.
They want to see that you can repeat what you did. ei 3 good models or difrent types of animation is a good way to show that.
They also want refrances. If you dont' have expirance, your best bet is, great referals. In other words you need good networking skills and you need to be known in the comunity. The best way to get that is through the on line comunity.

Many of the studio owners that have made post about this. Or the artdirecters in charege of highering people. Most of them have made post to the opinion that the schools are pumping out kids with the abiltiy to push a button, but lack tallent in one form or another. They know they can train anyone what button to press. But they are not going to take the time to train tallent !

In short:
Tallent,
Deadlines(ei reputation)

You don't have to take my word for it though. The pro's are online and they do post. Look for what they have said.