YOu can allways do what I did, when i was in your shoes, about 2 yrs ago. I took the engineering job. after about 3 mo, I started to take a few corses in Computer animation at St. Louis Community College... a couple of months after that, I convinced the company (after a ton of preliminary animations and examples, witch I didn't get paid for) to go ahead and Give me a position to do animation for their sales and construction departments. So, here I am now, with basically my own department doing computer animation. I know its not the funnest, animating how thier product is constructed, but its still animation and I get to use Maya, almost 14 hrs a day between work and when I get home. Its great. Plus, if you can pull that off, It looks good on your resume. Just my 2 cents,since I was in the same situation as you. Thanks,
Brian

BTW Another thing to consider, having this job really helped me to pay to pay for school, now I don't have any debt and I am just about finnished.

Its a hard decision, All I can say is good luck, Either way would be a good road, and like what was said B4, you can allways do animation outside of work. (Like me)