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Haute école Albert Jacquard

Programme information

In September 2000, with the help of employers faced with an important lack of certifying training courses, and at a time when on-the-job training of technicians and artists of all sorts was the only answer to the increasingly specialized needs of companies in this sector, the Haute Ecole Albert Jacquard (university-level higher education institution) created the Bachelor in Computer Graphics Techniques. This three-year degree is not limited to 3D animation but offers a larger scale of computer graphics skills (graphic design, web design, multimedia, video games and of course 3D animation and modeling) with the aim of meeting employers’ expectations.

By massively resorting to highly-skilled professionals, the Haute Ecole Albert Jacquard has created a training that meets the challenges of today’s graphics industry: to graduate young designers with high-level skills in the graphical as well as technical fields, designers perfectly aware of the technical constraints of the industry in which they are working, and who are also capable of adjusting to a multidisciplinary team and to abide by financial requirements.

Degree category / length of studies
Bachelor in computer graphics (3 years)

Programme categories
Prepress (graphic design), 3D computer generated images, web design and multimedia, video games art

Number of teachers
43 teachers
31 guest teachers

Number of students
996 students

Number of foreign students
153 foreign students


Entry requirements
Secondary education diploma

Programme description
After a first year where students learn the basics of computer graphics and develop a solid general background, the second and third years are mainly dedicated to graphics and technical courses. At the end of each of these two years students have to create a graphics work that summarises all the skills they have acquired.

During the third year, all students also make an internship of 12 weeks in the company of their choice so that they can get used to a real work environment. In this context the school collaborates with several leading companies to ensure the students gain the best experience possible. The companies where the placements are done praise the professionalism of our students and the latter are perfectly capable of shifting from the world of computer-generated images to the world of publishing or multimedia.

These varied skills enable the student in computer graphics who has obtained the degree to adapt to the various sectors of the graphics industry but also to adapt in an independent and innovating way to the constant and fast evolution of these sectors. Besides, the emphasis laid in the training on independence, personal research and self-learning enables students to create a final thesis in which they can display mastery in a particular field, but also to become real actors of their future professional career.

Philosophy

To train professionals in such an evolving context as computer graphics requires constraints that may seem paradoxical: to give future graphics designers technical, graphical but also creative and conceptual skills as well as the ability to adapt to a team and a production line, with all the specialization that it implies. In this respect, the emphasis placed by the HEAJ on the interdisciplinarity of teams and on the transversality of knowledge and skills has proven to be rewarding.

To meet this objective the training also widely resorts to experts from various computer graphics sectors, and puts the students in a situation of production as early as the first year in adequate labs: a machine per student, work on various platforms (Mac and PC) and on the most widespread operating systems (Windows, MacOs, Linux). The students have the opportunity to work in those labs until 10 p.m., which enables them to integrate what they learn each day without having to invest too early in very expensive material.