If you're trying to get moving in your animation career, consider finding an animation internship. Animation internships help those who are interested in developing their computer animation skills by providing them with entry-level work in the field. Animators create images and special effects for video games, television, movies, mobile devices, and other media.
As an animation intern, you can start moving your career forward in this field. In this type of job, some of your duties might include coming up with design strategies, building proposals for productions, creating simple or complex animations, along with providing support to senior animators or an animation team. You may also work with clients and production team members to establish project goals, create storyboards, and design and refine animations.
To succeed as an intern, you'll need to be eager to learn and familiar with current design trends. For most internships, employers will expect you to be enrolled in college and have a basic understanding of the animation process.
How to Become an Animation Internship
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an animation internship. For example, did you know that they make an average of $17.88 an hour? That's $37,190 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 16% and produce 51,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does an Animation Internship Do
There are certain skills that many animation interns have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, detail oriented and physical stamina.
How To Become an Animation Internship
If you're interested in becoming an animation internship, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 78.3% of animation interns have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.3% of animation interns have master's degrees. Even though most animation interns have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an animation internship. When we researched the most common majors for an animation internship, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on animation internship resumes include high school diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an animation internship. In fact, many animation internship jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many animation interns also have previous career experience in roles such as volunteer or research assistant.
Animation Internship Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of vet assistant you might progress to a role such as technician eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title area manager.
Average Salary for an Animation Internship
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Animation Internships
1. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
2. University of Florida
Gainesville, FL • Private
3. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
4. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL • Private
5. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA • Private
6. Ohio State University
Columbus, OH • Private
7. University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA • Private
8. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Private
9. Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD • Private
10. Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX • Private
Top Skills For an Animation Internship
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 37.0% of animation interns listed animal care on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and detail oriented are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Animation Internship Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Animation Internship templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Animation Internship resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Animation Internship Demographics
Animation Internship Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among animation interns, 71.0% of them are women, while 29.0% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among animation interns is White, which makes up 73.5% of all animation interns.
- The most common foreign language among animation interns is Spanish at 58.9%.
Online Courses For Animation Internship That You May Like
Learn how to animate characters using your video camera and microphone! No prior animation experience required!...
Learn everything you need for 3D animation in Autodesk Maya: Modeling, Texturing, Lighting, Rigging, Animation, Dynamics...
Best States For an Animation Internship
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an animation internship. The best states for people in this position are California, West Virginia, Washington, and North Dakota. Animation interns make the most in California with an average salary of $38,548. Whereas in West Virginia and Washington, they would average $36,408 and $36,316, respectively. While animation interns would only make an average of $35,616 in North Dakota, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. West Virginia
$36,408
Avg. Salary
2. California
$38,548
Avg. Salary
3. Washington
$36,316
Avg. Salary
How Do Animation Internship Rate Their Jobs?
Top Animation Internship Employers
Most Common Employers For Animation Internship
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium | $43,439 | $20.88 | 10 |
| 2 | Oregon State University | $43,320 | $20.83 | 35 |
| 3 | Full Sail University | $38,023 | $18.28 | 19 |
| 4 | Philadelphia Zoo | $37,190 | $17.88 | 53 |
| 5 | Binder Park Zoo | $37,190 | $17.88 | 23 |
| 6 | Zoo New England | $37,190 | $17.88 | 19 |
| 7 | Franklin Park | $37,190 | $17.88 | 17 |
| 8 | Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation | $37,190 | $17.88 | 15 |
| 9 | Lehigh Valley Zoo | $37,190 | $17.88 | 14 |
| 10 | Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo | $37,190 | $17.88 | 9 |