The issue with Blender is that it just isn't at the level of the professional tools we use in the industry.
Have fun playing with it, sure. But if you are a student on his way to approaching the professional market, there is only Maya (film, games) and LightWave (film, tv, games) left still standing in a meaningful way. A few of the major companies (Pixar, ILM) use a lot of internal software, but generally that is written around the Maya or LightWave APIs.
Everything else (3dstudio Max, Cinema 4d, SoftImage) has passed by the wayside and you can count the numbers of companies still using these packages on one hand - and none of them are major players.
But if you are just having FUN, to see if this is something you'd like to do, there are LOTS of free programs and GREAT student discounts on the pro packages.
LightWave, for example, runs in DEMO mode if you don't own a license. And that's more than enough to accomplish a great deal.
Good luck in your quest!
