Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, houses the Digital Media Department (DMD), which offers a BS in Animation & Visual Effects. The program gives students the “technological, story-telling and design skills to succeed as animators and visual effects artists in the highly competitive entertainment and design worlds,” says the school. “Over the course of their education in the program, students will pursue a foundation of design and technology by taking core courses in all aspects of digital media while delving into coursework covering many areas of specialization.”
The program consists of 51 credits of core courses, 45 hours of general education courses, 27 elective credits, 24 credit hours of art and art history requirements, 18 credits of animation requirements, 15 credits in media and computer science, and six credits of animation electives.
The program’s six-month co-op allows students to “learn the underlying principles of animation along with industry-standard software technology. The entire creative pipeline from storyboarding through modeling and animation is covered in-depth, allowing students to experience all aspects of production.” Animation & Visual Effects students have held co-op positions with employers such as 3FX Medical Animations, AlchemyX, Brooklyn Digital Foundry, Cartoon Network, Environmental Tectonics, ESM Productions, FuseFX, Mediakraft TV, SideFX, Sony Studios, Stargate Studios, and many others.
BS students interested in completing both the BS and an advanced degree have the option to enter the accelerated BSMS degree in Digital Media or the BS and the new MS in Biomedicine and Digital Media (MS BMDM) after completing at least 90 undergraduate credits. The MS BMDM The Master of Science in Biomedicine and Digital Media program (BMDM) intersects animation, entrepreneurship, interactive digital art design, science, and technology.
This hybrid program is offered in the College of Medicine and it offers a number of elective course options, a flexible (experiential learning) internship, and a customizable plan of study. A thesis is not required.
Graduates of the Westphal Animation and Digital Media programs at Drexel University have landed positions at leading companies such as Disney, DreamWorks, Microsoft XBOX, NCSoft Corp., Pixar, and many others.