Why has Max the Mutt resisted becoming a degree-granting school? Max the Mutt is a registered Career College offering government approved diploma programs. What this means is that we are able to include students who have the talent and ability to develop the skills they’ll need in the industries we serve, but may not be well suited to an academic environment. In fact, many would agree that the tendency to make everything a degree course (including modern dance) makes no sense. Unless our program were two years longer, we would have to water down critical parts of our curriculum to make room for courses in psychology and other liberal arts subjects. While we value general education, we strongly feel that you cannot do everything at the same time and do it well.

If Max the Mutt were forced to be degree granting,  some of our graduates now working as animation directors, 3D and 2D animators, character designers and storyboard artists, would have been blocked from entering these careers because they don’t have the academic credentials to be accepted into a degree program. This would have been a loss to them and to the industry.

That is not to say that we don’t have many university graduates among our student body, as well as people who could meet the academic requirements for a BA but choose to be in a community where they can direct all their energy towards developing their skills. Part of what makes Max the Mutt such an interesting and vital community is the diversity of the student body.

Equally important to us is our ability to hire the individuals we feel are best suited to teach particular courses - people with current industry experience. Most of these people (Ty Templeton, Dave Ross, Tina Seemann for example) do not have degrees. They are simply among the best in their disciplines and have a knack for teaching.

Degree granting schools need to hire people who hold a degree one level higher than those they are teaching. In our minds this doesn’t make sense in areas that are essentially not academic. We are training people for careers. They will be hired based on their skills and professionalism, not on the basis of a piece of paper. You do not need to be licensed to animate, or write a graphic novel, or do concept art. What matters is what you know, what you can do, and your ability to work well with other people and be professional. These are the qualities that companies are looking for, not academic degrees.