I've been working since graduating more than 4 years now, and I've improved a lot over these years. It's a very different environment from college to professional studio work. I have friends that graduated same year as me but some quit animation entirely and some are still trying to find an entry level job. I flew out to LA from NYC 1 month after graduating, for an internship at Titmouse, when there were merely 20-ish people around. I was hired after two months of testing, and my first job was a clean-up artist/animation in betweenner.
a little side story, I signed up for "animation" major thinking it's 3d for game cinematics, and it turned