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Written by : Colby Leversee |
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hello scientists welcome to dropout mad so this video i will have a conversation with you about whether you need a degree to start working as a scientific illustrator so the short answer is no you don't need a degree to work as a freelance illustrator but there are some advantages that you have if you have a degree a few of you guys have asked me about the career path of scientific illustrator and one of the common questions i get is what uh kind of study that i need to go through to become a scientific illustrator and whether i need a degree to start working on scientific illustration yeah because a lot of you guys have studied science you're also studying phd or master and scientific subject and also possibly working in academic research already so taking a new degree can be quite um quite a big big leap in in terms of the career change so uh so i get all these questions whether it is necessary to obtain a degree and so the answer like a quick one is no you don't need a degree if you want to start working as a scientific illustrator i have um same people who is operating as a scientific illustrator who has not gone to official scientific illustration degree and um they are i think a lot of them are physicians doctors who just have a hobby of drawing and then they started it as a side hustle uh in addition to their medical practice uh so that is some uh empirical proof that you can definitely start as a scientific illustrator without the degree uh however uh i have to say there are some advantages you will have if you have a degree so from my personal experience there are i think two biggest advantages the first is that it is easier for you to be recognized by the big institutes and companies that you are a professional scientific illustrator have you had a degree in my case i get to go give workshop at the university of oxford and also einstein center of neuroscience in berlin and all these universities around the world i think mainly really it was because i have a degree i'm professionally trained as a scientific illustrator so these event organizers at the university is confident enough for me to provide a professional workshop to their phd and faculty members i very vividly remember that when i was arranging a workshop with the dunn school of pathology at the university of oxford which is an institute where they discover penicillin and the the event organizers specifically in the email said that oh there's really it's really nice to have a professional scientific illustrator to come and give a workshop to our phd students so uh that was uh one of the like the big moment i realized there is a big advantage in having a degree uh which is uh there there are these very great opportunities at a very prestigious institute that you will have access to um so that is one pro that you would have for your if you study a scientific illustrator degree and the second one is that some of the knowledges about the scientific illustration field i strongly think that you could only learn it through going to a structural program there are some very established convention within the scientific illustration discipline and there are some style guidelines that you really have to follow if you are creating a very professional scientific illustration so a few example that i would say as i would like think of right now is that first is how the convention of organizing visual content can leads to certain interpretation of your visual storytelling that i um that had i not gone to a degree i would never become aware it has such a strong psychological impact on the viewers for instance for western viewers it is they they have a tendency they have a habit of reading things from left to right so if you if your arranged things from right to left and then sometimes it can create an an entire different interpretation of your story so uh these are the the very essential conventions i think that you would not have a very structural structural knowledge established if you have not gone through a scientific illustration program and another one is that there are a certain convention in the usage of color within the medical illustration convention certain colors are conventionally used on certain anatomy structures so those things i think it's very important if you want to present yourself as a also operate as a professional scientific illustrator and medical illustrator uh so uh yeah so like really by going through these programs you can uh you you will know that how uh how a profession really like a professional scientific illustrator would uh would work on these on these cases and collaborate with the scientists so um so so these are the advantages that you have if you have gone through a degree um but as i mentioned earlier there are also people who started operating at the center of illustrator without a degree so um there are some also an advantage of uh there are some also some advantages of that so from what i observed is that um because they they usually are already like doctors and also science scientific researchers so essentially your colleagues are your potential customers and so when they started off this scientific illustration site hustle it is very easy for them to acquire clients if they if the their clients trust their capacity of illustrating for if their colleagues trust in their capacity of illustrating for for them so so there are there are advantages in having a degree and not having a degree just evaluate by yourself that how much risk that you would like to take in order in in pursuing a career in scientific illustration if you want to have it as a side hustle on top of your scientific career then then you don't need to go to a degree you can just take some workshops and online courses to to familiar yourself with some principles um yeah you can also check out drawbalmet to to learn scientific illustration and and i think these will be enough for you to use as a side hustle on top of your scientific uh regular daytime job however if you are really serious about becoming a like a professional artist and also i really want to become embody yourself with the profession of scientific illustration then uh going to uh accredited degree in scientific illustration or medical illustration i think that will help you a lot if you're going towards that direction so yeah let me uh know in the comments that what else are you curious about the scientific illustrator career or if you are a scientist who are thinking about uh like so just some have some like career uh questions uh that um or about career switching you're all very welcome to comment below to let me know and if i have experience in that situation i'm very glad to share my experience with you guys so yeah and make sure to subscribe to drawbarmed and turn on the notification bell so uh you get to see these videos of my conversation with you and i wish you all happy dropout matt and i look forward to seeing you in the future videos you
Thanks for your comment Margarette Schleifer, have a nice day.
- Colby Leversee, Staff Member
hello and welcome and lucille i find
Thanks laesenciascmG your participation is very much appreciated
- Colby Leversee
About the author
I've studied indonesian history at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier and I am an expert in social economy. I usually feel gloomy. My previous job was chaplain (prison, military, hospital) I held this position for 23 years, I love talking about antiquing and drumming. Huge fan of Larry David I practice wrestling: greco-roman and collect chemical elements.
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