Keeping skills up to date
In the animation industry, it's still very important for people to work and improve on their skills, even after they leave their degree course and start taking jobs. It's also to help in keeping up with the constant evaluation of animation and media technology of the current day as if you can't update your skill sets, you'd be out of date and might not even get a job in the industry.
So, how does someone keep their skills up to date; by following courses and tutorials all over the place, in both digital and physical places such as Youtube or a MA course. Although with the current climate of the world in lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, studying now is more or so done through online classes and video tutorials.
These people would usually study their skill improvements whenever they have free time; this can come from free time during their part time jobs, study on weekends if they have a nine to five job or hopefully, they can have a job where they can receive a "Professional Development time" where they allow the employee to continue studying their skills for improvement (like a teacher for example)
Long VS Short Courses
When studying and keeping your skill levels up to date, there are two different types of courses for this; long and short courses. So, what's the difference between the two? Well...
LONG - Long courses typically take a year at the minimum to complete and you would be given a qualification at the end of the course that you could place in your CV to attract more employers to it. A example of this would be a diploma course in either 2D or 3D animation, which could be achieved in The Royal College of Art in London (left image) or if you want a international school, Ringling College of Art and Design which is very recommended for Disney, Pixar, etc. (right image)
SHORT - Short courses on the other hand can only take a few months to just a single month to complete; however because of this short time frame, it doesn't earn you a qualification to place on your CV as it's merely just some basic hands on training. A example of this would be something like SkillShare, a online subscription service that give informative lessons on a variety of skills; one example of a skillshare course is "Character Rigging with Duik Bassel" taught by Jake Bartlett, a 22 lesson course with the lesson lengths ranging from five minutes to twenty minutes where Bartlett would teach how to rig using a specific script method
Therefore, there are some benefits and drawbacks with choosing between a long or a short course; but I see the main difference between the two is that if you just want to improve on your skills and might struggle with managing time between that and a job; a short course might be more desirable; but if you want to put more stuff into your CV to not just improve your skills but to also appear more enticing for employers, a long course might work for you. The only exception to a short course being acceptable in a CV is with the Animation Mentor online courses as those courses are taught by Industry Professionals (aka, people who currently work in the industry) so saying you've learnt directly from the industry will make your CV more appealing.
Pros and Cons of Online Courses
With lockdown and social distancing being implemented across the world, online courses have become more prominent in modern times than ever before; and because of this, online schools are becoming more and more appealing to inspiring artists and animators. But, with any kind of method for just about anything; there will always be pros and cons for it and Online Courses are no exception to this despite now being the current format of studying today. So; what are these Pros and Cons of online courses? Well, I've roughly made a comparison list between these pros and cons and see if going full online is a good idea.
PROS
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The class sizes are usually smaller, so you get more chances to communicate with the tutor on any issues you may have
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These courses can often be more flexible with when you can attend so there isn't as much pressure to juggle coursework and work
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You can find courses that target directly to a skill you feel needs work on so every session doesn't feel like a major "waste of time"
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Financially, they're better as you won't need to worry about finding finances for communication.
Cons
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There are only a few chances you might be able to communicate with your tutor
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If you come across any technical issue at home, it may negatively effect your grades and cause you to fall back unfairly
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Depending on the individual, studying online can be more frustrating as the feelings of isolation or procrastination can end up with you suffering from mental health issues that might cause you to take breaks from work and make your skills fall behind even more.
So, from my rough comparisons between these pros and cons; technically speaking there are more pros for online learning as opposed to cons as online learning gives you more chances to communicate, schedule your studying to your comfort level, massive help in improving targeted skills and even prevent people from financial damages through debt. However, with the cons I've listed, they mainly target individual cons such as a person's ability to keep focused, how they deal with being alone most of the time and how they are with technology if anything goes wrong; I don't think it's fair to compare the two. And with the other main con being chances of communication, it just depends on the online class size; so it would be something we would keep an eye out for when looking to apply to an online course if we need to in the future.