Need help : Universities for Digital Animation?

<p>I'm a student from Malaysia, whose currently majoring in Digital Animation, or more likely 2D & 3D + communication design, in college. Well, I am of course considered too, an art student, so I posted this thread. </p>

<p>Going to graduate soon but I'm just curious and woried, which University can I get my degree in Animation from. As far as I know that, degree in Animation isn't very popular yet and the standards and recognitions for this degree are somehow unclear. </p>

<p>Therefore I hope someone can provide me with names of good universities offering an Animation Degree, so that it can narrow my search. (believe me, I'm already all sweated out, just looking up infos for this degree. )</p>

<p>Please help me. Thnx. Oh yeah... ( No Online Universities pls~!)</p>

<p>I don't understand if you are asking about graduate schoolor undergraduate. It might make a diffrence. However, some schools to consider are:</p>

<ol>
<li>School of Visual Arts in New York ( strong in animation and digitial, and communicatin design),</li>
<li>Pratt Institute: strong in everything</li>
<li>RISD: very strong in graphic design and digital media. Don't know how good animation is.</li>
<li><p>Savannah College of Design is supposedly strong in animation with a strong sequential art program.</p></li>
<li><p>If you just want Digital media and comminication design: other schools in these two disciplines are: Syracuse University, University of Cincinnati, and RISD again.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Good Luck.</p>

<p>thnx for the suggestion, tax...</p>

<p>but I'm somehow a little confused too.
I'm going to finish my diploma in Digital Animation. That makes me an undergraduate rite, since I'm trying to get a degree next? </p>

<p>And some of the "schools" and colleges, didn't really state clearly, whether the animation course they provide are degree programs. And, is there a "Bachelor in Digital Animation" title? coz i haven't seen one yet. Just in case I've graduated, would that make me Bachelor of Fine Arts? </p>

<p>oh yeah...and there's this noob question from me, whats the difference between "School of Design", a university, and a college who offers degree programs? (I used to think that colleges are only qualified to offer diploma programs, am I wrong?)</p>

<p>sorry for the trouble, I didnt care much before i got into college, but now I'm kinda woried about my future and I found that I know too little about preparations for furthering studies. Regretted =.=!</p>

<p>Sorry for the nagging too, Please help~ and thanks~! ^^</p>

<p>First, if you already have a degree, you would probably get a MFA in the subject.</p>

<p>Second, a school of design is usually a design program within a university such as with Syracuse University. However, it could be a stand alone art school too.</p>

<p>If you want primarily animation, consider either School of Visual Arts in NY, which is a stand alone art program. This school was originally started by animators and cartoonists. It is also NASAD accredited.</p>

<p>Another good choice would be SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design,which has a strong sequential art program. However, it isn't NASAD accrredited. I am not sure what the detriment to not having NASAD accreditation is,but the top ranked art programs are almost all NASAD accredited.</p>

<p>I don't know of other schools personally; however, you might want to check out Yale, UCLA, USC et. al., and see if these have grad programs in animation. Good luck.</p>

<p>drexel and philadelphia university have digital media too.</p>

<p>Ask your advisors at your school what the next step would be for you as a student going to America. They should know.</p>

<p>Your school choice will depend very much on what you want to DO with your degree. If you want to be a digital animator, Carnagie Mellon is supposed to be an absolutely excellent school for that. However, from what I understand, they focus mainly on 3D CG animation (though they start out with hand-drawn, which is good) and teach you how to be an animator. And that's it. You don't get the entire production line. RIT, I believe, is very similar. SCAD is another good one. There are also a lot of technical schools that offer degrees in animation, but I'm not sure how good they are. The best animation school in the country, bar none, is CalArts. That goes for both undergrad and grad. Though I'd say UCLA is good, too...one of their recent graduates was nominated for an Academy Award last year for his short film "9".</p>

<p>The best thing to do is narrow down what you want and search out schools that have it. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it!!</p>

<p>Good luck!!</p>

<p>A good place to go to check out different animation schools is <a href="http://www.awn.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.awn.com&lt;/a> and click on their Animation School Database. It has almost every school on the PLANET (though I went to one that wasn't on there) that either offers an animation degree or that offers animation classes. But be careful and make sure to follow up on the schools you find interesting--I actually got into a school that I thought had an MFA Animation program that didn't, so I had to turn around and reject them because they didn't have what I wanted :(</p>

<p>fliktavirtuoso - dont feel bad about SFU! you still have RIT and UCLA. Did you see SFU - Cinema Dept' curriculum before applying there?</p>

<p>3DACrazy--yeah, I did, and that's what threw me off. They have a whole list of animation classes for MFA Cinema students (that looked similar to RIT etc.), so I didn't take it as NOT having animation as a specialization. Plus I stated very clearly in my essay that those are the kinds of films I was interested in making, so that's why I was so startled after I got in and was told that their "animation program" consisted of two professors, one of which does only Maya...I mean, this is not to say that I'm NOT interested in making live-action films, b/c I'd like to incorporate both media in my work (and a few others, if I can...another story), but for me to want to do MOST of my work in animation and not be able to for the whole first year of grad school...well, I thought that was kinda pointless. But again, I didn't find that out until after I got in.</p>

<p>I guess what it comes down to is I guess I didn't get the correct info when I was doing my initial search. I mean, it's such a rare, specialized area that I was looking for...it's hard to just Google it and hope you find something. I did a TON of searching for schools, like I went through the entire list of animation schools on AWN and then went to the school websites that were listed as offering an MFA in animation (or something close to it). I probably got the info about SFSU's program from there initially, then when I checked out the SFSU site, I saw the list of classes and thought, "Ok great, this place has an animation program!" I didn't even know forums/websites like CC even existed up until like a week ago, right b4 i became a member. And that was to see if anyone else was waiting to hear from UCLA :p I wasn't foresighted enough to contact SFSU (or anyone else, really) BEFORE applying, and I realize now that that was a totally stupid move on my part, because I probably missed out on a lot of good opportunities and ended up wasting money and time on applications I shouldn't have bothered sending in. But oh, well. It's over now, and I know better.</p>

<p>It doesn't help that I'm kinda on my own with this...my current university has no animation program at all, so I can't even ask a faculty member about what to do or where to go with this. Plus I'm finishing up my undergrad degree and am currently taking 19 credits worth of classes, most of which are to finish up my minor in Creative writing. But I've always been like that; I've always kind of been on my own with my animation work anyway, so I don't really have an excuse. :p</p>

<p>How like animators...control-freak overachievers. That's me. lol</p>