Bournemouth University - BU Speciality : Art & Design
programme: Animation

I studied the MA 3D Computer Animation at BU. If you are an international student I can’t warn you enough about how studying there can be one of the worsts mistakes that you can make in your life. They cherry pick the stories of success. They use the names of the bigs studios for advertising, implicitly or explicitly. They use BFX as an advertising tool for the courses at BU. They say that they will prepare you for the industry in completion of the course, this is absolutely false in my experience. The MA is an introductory course condesed in one year. For an astronomical fee you will learn the basics of the tools and techiques. Things are taught in a rushed manner and sometimes in a mediocre way. Most of the people end the course with the same artistic level that they begin with. You will learn higher education skills that are transfarable to the practice of the profession or other aspects of life. But the price is absolutely not worth it. You can learn the basics of the software and basic techniques from free sources or from a paid source that is an infinitesimal fraction and provide the same or more value. And you can for sure learn the higher education skills that are the most valuable part of the course creating projects by yourself. Most of the international racialized students that I know didn’t get into the industry and we were very dissapointed, some of us to the point of depression. It felt like a scam. The teachers don’t have a good artistic level and there was a teacher that had a very abussive behaviour. Also, you have to consider that the industry is very discriminatory despite what they say. So if you don’t have a European or Canadian passport you will have a difficut time getting a job even in a small studio. The majority of the people working in the studios are white Europeans and North Americans. If you mix a discriminatory industry with a student debt you have a horrible situation. Many of the students that later had success in the industry took further online reputed education like iAnimate or AnimSchool. If you want to become an animator go for this option. Having a MA will give you zero employability advantage. Buy a good computer, get a good subscription, get good online education, do projects by yourself and get feedback. I write this as a way of denouncing my experience there but also to warn you. If you are lucky, you will read this. I would say avoid the MA 3D Computer Animation, and if you don’t trust me ask other people I am confident that more people will have the courage to say it. I ended up with an unpayable debt for the minuscule value that I got.

Since I’m still in my 1st year my opinion is pretty limited but I believe the university has been successful in showing it’s students how industry level practices take place and putting students in contact with industry level animators. The university provides top level software accessibility and a friendly environment for international students

There are lots of programs related to VFX. Each course is unique on its own and will explore specific areas in the VFX pipeline. There are a lot of facilities available for the students 24/7 to achieve their dream projects for the course.

Work in a communial labs with everyone from your year, great fun. Amazing networking from industry professionals and BFX. Learn to specialise or become a generalist, working in a wide range of projects!

The sense of community within the Faculty of Media is great, with students working together to solve problems. The communication between students across academic levels means we learn from each other, with advice from their previous experience of the units. However I’ve had issues with the structuring of my course, with some assignment briefs being unknown for over a month. Overall I’ve found we all learn more from each other than the lecturers, though the amount of industry talks that are set up are extremely good.