My first year as an animation student at Art Center College of Design

EDIT: please note the schedule I showed is a little outdated now, the school is constantly updating and changing their curriculum so please check the website to see, or email the school to get the most current version.

Hi guys! I wanted to make a video of my current experience at ACCD since the animation program is so new and I've been getting questions about it. Please watch the whole thing, or read below, before asking any questions.

And please remember, this is only my personal experience! It will be different for everyone!

Forgot to say in the video, when I showed the schedule all the pink classes are optional, all the others are mandatory.

Also, the first 2 terms, 2D animation is done only on paper. Third term is when there's a switch to digital.

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Here is a copy paste of an email I wrote to a prospective student in case any of you guys prefer reading over listening:

In my opinion, I've been enjoying ACCD! But it's also pretty... Heavy. Before we get into classes, this is definitely a school where u need good time management. Each term you have 6 classes, most of which will be 5 hours long each (with lots of breaks ofc). For your first two years the classes are mostly fixed (u can see the class curriculum on the website) though you can negotiate a class or two depending on what you want. (They also just started offering stop motion classes!)

After the first two years is when you really get to specialize in what you want to do. Student films are also group projects, not independently done.

The classes I've had so far pretty much teach u a bit of everything for the animation industry. The first 2 terms (aka semester- each is 14 weeks) 2D animation is completely on paper, but our teacher worked at Disney on movies like Hercules and the lion king! He was very encouraging.

Storyboards come in a bit later, there's none of it first term, but then you dabble in it in second term in the story class (in which u develop a story, and then make a short animatic- though it's focused more on writing than drawing).

Term 3 (which I will be entering in the fall) is when you get shorts prep, in which you start doing storyboards, and start ur own pitch (I believe). There's also a layout class, which is in 3D but ultimately will be a big help for storyboards.

The great thing about this school is that it's pretty big, and you can take classes from other majors (it can be hard tho, since students from that major get priority).

For me personally, it was honestly the most affordable too. They can give a pretty good scholarship if your portfolio and grades are good enough. (if ur still not satisfied with it tho, u can send an appeal letter to get even more aid- just do it before u agree to it)

Oh! Also animation classes don't really run during the summer term- u can take ur academics or other non animation classes tho. But most of us take it off........

Portfolio day huh? I think they do participate in those! (they also do tours of the campus) so you should definitely go to those. And yeah the intern shows are available for all entertainment design majors! While most companies that visit are more concept based, ACCD said they will try to invite more animation companies for the upcoming shows (every spring). Intern shows are also optional to apply to.

ACCD does also invite artists all the time for talks (and sometimes signings) and I've been to a few it's pretty cool! They also have free workshops to learn programs like the ones in the adobe suite and stuff like bookbinding where you just gotta pay for materials. But like, yeah theres always events, many of which have free food heh (but unfortunately the cafeteria food isn't cheap).

And that's it for the copy paste!

Hope this helped!