Animation (Major)

Animation is as old as storytelling—and more relevant than ever.

It is a tool to educate, engage, and entertain, and it has an exceptional ability to convey messages and ideas, playing a crucial role in a variety of industries.

As an Animation major at MICA, you will learn the art of creative thinking and flexibility while you master core skills the medium. These abilities will allow you to respond to today's ever-changing landscape, where technology continues to transform animation's potential.

WHY ANIMATION AT MICA?

Animation students work and learn together in state-of-the-art space in Brown Center, which was built specifically for design and time-based media programs.

And in cultivating an animation community that is rooted in Baltimore, the Animation Department provides real-world experience to students by leveraging partnerships with local organizations and experts in areas including medicine, science, astronomy, music, gaming, documentary, VR/AR, and cinema.

To learn more about the department's events, resources, faculty, and students, visit the Animation Deparment blog, known as the departmental...blah, blah blah.

The Animation Department uses state-of-the-art processes and industry standard computer hardware and software.

We don't just train our students in the mechanics of production, we teach the integration of technology and storytelling best practices. Students emerge from the program as fully-developed artists able to articulate a creative vision using 2D, Stop-Motion, and 3D animation, or a combination of approaches.

Animation majors have the opportunity to work on our collaborative project with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

In the course Astro-Animation, students work with scientists to translate astrophysics concepts into educational animations. The results include short films exploring topics such as dark matter and dwarf galaxies, and are helping NASA educate the public about the Fermi telescope mission and the science behind it.

You can find out more about the department's Astro Animation Research here.

MICA's Animation program is ranked MICA is ranked #1 in Maryland, in the top 10 on the East Coast, and in the top 50 nationally by Animation Career Review.

And our alumni are thriving professionally. They are building careers as:

Google Doodlers
Animators for DreamWorks and Nickelodeon
Production Designers for Walt Disney Animation Studios
2D and 3D animators at design firms and in medicine
as exhibiting artists showing films in festivals across the US

Alumni Stories

“I am so grateful for everyone that I’ve met during my time at MICA.”

“One of the best things that came out of my time at MICA was getting to connect with not only the other students, but my professors as well.” Zoë Sariano ’16

Student Gallery

Andrew Paul Keiper ’16

“MICA's students are always pushing forward, whether into new approaches within their media or into important and challenging conversations in the classroom.”

Stephanie Williams

“I have learned so much from my students as I help them understand the importance of their own voice. I know that these students will never feel ‘stuck’ in their research when they leave MICA because they have shown through countless obstacles that they aren’t satisfied with the way things are, they strive to invent strategies for the way things should be.”