What Degree Should I Pursue for a Career in VFX and Animation?

[vshah1994]

I am really interested in the VFX and animation industries and actively pursue learning vfx applications such as Autodesk Maya/3DS/Mudbox, Adobe After Effects, Blendr, and other programs. My university does not offere a real degree in animation or visual effects so which would be best for me. Software Engineering, Computer Science, or Computer Science Engineering. I go to UCI and each has its perks. CS offers great exposure to programming languages while Software offers much more practise in GUI development. CSE offers the middle ground between engineering and CS. I know that in real life, I will not actively be using much of what I learn, but what do companies like Double Negative (www.dneg.com) The Moving Picture Company (www.moving-picture.com) Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com) Framestore (www.framestore.com) look for?

Thanks Guys

 

[rcgldr]

Animation oriented companies are going to look for experience in animation or some type of graphics background (perhaps gaming graphics), but they may hire graduates or programmers without graphics experience to initially work on more generic software, then transition the new programmers based on graphics experienced gained in house.

I'm not sure of the differences in UCI's programs. CSE used to be like an EE major minoring in CS, which would probably not be a good fit for an animation oriented company. A long time ago, UCI stopped offering masters degrees in CS related programs, only having bachelor and phd programs. Has UCI gone back to offering master degrees again?

 

[NemoReally]

...but what do companies like Double Negative (www.dneg.com) The Moving Picture Company (www.moving-picture.com) Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com) Framestore (www.framestore.com) look for?

Ask them.

Also try and look ahead to what skills (or underlying theory) may be needed in 5, 10 or 20 years time. The skills you gain for Today's market may be irrelevant even in the near future.

 

[trueo]

It is hard to predict what the future holds. For whatever fields I enter, I might be requested to know or learn some basics. I am now working as a web engineer for an online text processing company and I use tools people wrote in C/C++, it is immense and I am yet to invest more of my time learning how these processors do their jobs over different web pages made with a variety of technologies involved. . I take it that "I Know the basics, then I can freely grow my imagination and skills"