Hey guys my name is Katherine Cross and I am starting to learn Houdini as a student, using Houdini Apprentice. Is it worth the $75 to buy the student liscense? Or does apprentice work just fine? Any tips on where to start as a new user?

Stay with apprentice for now. Educational licence unlocks a few thing you won't need right now, like rendering larger than HD, USD and other animated geometry cache formats.

Ideally you shouldn't need to pay. Ask your school to contact sidefx, the school should be organising licences for you.

mestela
Ideally you shouldn't need to pay. Ask your school to contact sidefx, the school should be organising licences for you.

Schools buy licenses for on campus labs. We have now made education available for students to use on personal computers - also for students who want to do things that Apprentice doesn't. These include rendering without a watermark, and using Houdini Engine plug-ins in Unreal and Unity. Since Education and Apprentice use .hdanc files for digital assets the education license is needed.