Want to Teach Animation? Get a Master's Degree

Want to teach? Get an MA

Do Animators Need a Master's Degree?  The answer is, it depends on what you want to do. Academia cares about academic qualifications. Industry cares about demo reels. 

If you want a job in the animation industry, you don't need a masters' level qualification. But if you are hoping to teach, especially in higher education, a masters' degree is more or less a necessity. 

The reason is that universities need evidence that you know what you are doing.  And in higher education, that evidence is a formal post-graduate qualification in your chosen field. 

What Universities Need

Universities are heavily regulated, and governments tend to insist that academic staff must be properly qualified.  Since government bureaucrats aren't good at spotting talent, they tend to look at objective criteria such as academic qualifications.

Lecturers Need an MA
In government eyes, a qualified animation lecturer isn't necessarily someone who is really good at animation; it is someone with a masters' degree. As a result, higher education institutions tend to insist that their staff have an MA. And, if they are teaching at master's level, ideally a PHD. 

Work Visa 
Also if you want to work overseas, an MA can help a lot with a work visa. For example, obtaining a visa to work in the USA can be much easier if the applicant has an MA in their chosen field.

What Industry Needs
Industry has different needs. Industry needs talent, and it knows what talent looks like. Industry also understands that most university courses tend to focus on written skills, often in the process neglecting practical skills, and so they tend not to put much faith in academic qualifications.  Your demo reel, on the other hand, is vitally important. A great demo reel is the secret to finding work in industry.

Masters' Degree at Bucks
Our online MA in animation, delivered in partnership with Buckinghamshire New University, is a unique degree because it has a strong focus on practical skills. Our online MA teaches our students how to animate, and to be employable as animators (with a great demo reel), but also how to engage with the theory of the medium at masters' level. 

Practical Training - Alexander Williams
Alexander Williams, founder of Animation Apprentice, teaches, delivers, assesses and marks the practical part of the course.  All our students have a personal login at www.animationapprentice.org, with access to the all the learning materials.

The balance we strike between theory and practice is one of the things that makes this course unique. We have designed the course to have a strong appeal both to those interested in learning practical skills that will get them a job, and also the theoretical skills that will make them qualified to teach in higher education.

To find out more about Animation Apprentice, click here for a link to Frequently Asked Questions. To sign up for our next classroom at Animation Apprentice, follow this link.