How To Become An Animation Internship: What It Is and Career Path

What is an animation internship and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

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.

ScoreAnimation InternshipUS Average

Salary

2.5

Avg. Salary $31,922

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.7

Growth rate 28%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

1.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.49%

Asian 2.64%

Black or African American 4.31%

Hispanic or Latino 18.27%

Unknown 6.53%

White 67.76%

Gender

female 70.98%

male 29.02%

Age - 29

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 29

Stress level

6.7

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.0

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

8.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an animation internship

Explore animation internship education requirements

Most common animation internship degrees

Bachelor's

78.3 %

Associate

9.6 %

High School Diploma

4.7 %

Start to develop specific animation internship skills

Skills	Percentages
Animation	19.03%
Animal Husbandry	10.84%
Daily Husbandry	5.78%
Zoo Animals	4.09%
Animal Species	3.89%

Complete relevant animation internship training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New animation interns learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an animation internship based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real animation internship resumes.

Research animation internship duties and responsibilities

Manage complicated water filtration systems, and implement nutrition plans for a variety of snake species.
Participate in scuba diving operations for guest education programs and large exhibit maintenance.
Conduct routine maintenance on pumps, plumbing, lighting, and other equipment.
Rotate through surgery, internal medicine, cardiology, oncology, and emergency/critical care.

Prepare your animation internship resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your animation internship resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an animation internship resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable animation internship resume templates

Build a professional animation internship resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your animation internship resume.