Of primary importance for professional work experience and future employment is an on-going internship course with New York City companies. Networking with alumni and professional resources through our department’s diverse faculty connections/involvements is a major avenue for employment and recruitment. Students are encouraged to attend conferences such as SIGGRAPH. Undergraduate students are urged to consider graduate school. The faculty also stresses that students should complete senior projects well ahead of schedule in order to be competitive in the market.

At RCA under Joan Ashworth's watch, students are encouraged to identify their strengths and learn to apply them in the working world.

Joan Ashworth • Head of Animation, The Royal College of Art
After graduating from the National Film and Television School in 1987, Ashworth co-founded 3 Peach Animation through which she directed many commercials, title sequences and stings for TV and cinema including the opening titles for Tim Burton’s Batman. She joined the RCA in 1994, becoming professor of animation in 1998. Since joining the RCA Ashworth has continued working as animator. Recently, Ashworth completed a 10-minute film How Mermaids Breed inspired by Bronze Age Cycladic fertility figures, the drawings of Henry Moore and Birling Gap Beach, Sussex.

The two-year MA Course at the Royal College of Art focuses on students finding their own voice and developing the skills to communicate their ideas. We encourage students to develop creative problem-solving abilities that give them transferable skills. If they choose not to stay in animation, they can then apply their skills to other areas.

Learning to research intuitively and questioning the design problem is important and yields creative results. Learning to present work in an engaging way shows an understanding of the audience. Because students will need to stand out in the jostling for independent film funding, we encourage students to develop their writing and business skills. These are taught through creative writing workshops, professional practice workshops and the embedded and personal examples of most filmmakers who present their work at the college.

During the course, the students' strengths and saleable skills become obvious and they are made aware that they could consider applying these skills in a commercial environment, and some students choose to embrace this route. Others combine selling these skills with creating their own projects. It is not always easy to keep a balance, but the staff at the college show the example of balancing teaching with independent production and commercial work.

Flexibility of the mind, creative risk-taking and the practical ability to understand what is needed to realize a project through all its twists and turns are key elements examined on the course. These are all elements required in the workplace and most students graduate with these skills in place and a hunger to create more.

An alumna of UCLA, Darlene Chan has worked in the motion picture industry for 14 years. She served as a production executive for Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Davis Entertainment and Motown. She produced Grumpy Old Men (1993) for Warner Bros. In 2001, she joined Animation World Magazine as general manager and was named managing editor in 2002.