Media arts is at once an exciting, fulfilling, and terrifying field. It is a career choice in which your creative outlet is also your livelihood, and your work reaches and impacts large audiences. However, it is also a field often wrought with precarious part-time or contract work, scant employment opportunities, and fierce competition. Getting into a media arts program is a huge benefit not only for your education, but also for networking, experience, and valuable internships. To help you with this, consider the many scholarships that can be pursued in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia.

Ontario is filled with many opportunities for education and work in the media arts. Toronto alone is a vast city filled with production and media companies and schools. The Bank of Montreal offers a $1,000 scholarship for the multimedia program offered at McMaster University. Those interested in film or new media can apply for the Edie Yolles Award, which provides $2,200 for studying at Ryerson University. Diversity is encouraged via the Global Television Network Scholarship Award for a Canadian Visibility Minority Student. This award gives you $4,500 to apply for broadcast or media communications programs in any university in Ontario or other provinces, such as Alberta.

Alberta may not have the same opportunities as a city like Toronto, Ontario, but the province still offers very helpful scholarships for numerous programs. The Abbondanza Fine Arts Scholarship offers four to eight awards of $500 to $1,000 for graduate studies in fine arts, new media, music, theatre, and dramatic arts at the University of Lethbridge. Undergraduates can turn to the University of Lethbridge’s Linda Nicol Entrance Scholarship in Fine Arts. This award provides $500 to $1,000 for fine arts studies. The University of Calgary awards $4,500 for electronic media studies through the Lynda R. Hodges-Zwerman Memorial Scholarship. The Bayshore Broadcasting Media Scholarship has grants for broadcasting students in any Albertan university or other province in Canada, including British Columbia.

British Columbia offers job-rich cities such as Vancouver, Victoria, and Kelowna. It is an ideal province to pursue media arts as a profession. The University of British Columbia grants $1,000 for film and visual arts studies through the Vernon Film Society Scholarship. Those interested in new media design and web development can get $1,500 by applying for the CTV Entrance Award at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Finally, the NAAF Fine Arts Bursary Awards Program is for all fine arts programs across British Columbia and throughout Canada.

The media arts career path is a competitive field. You need every advantage you can get. A good education can lead you to the right knowledge, networking, and internship opportunities that can pave the way to success. Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia offer a multitude of scholarships to make it easier to apply and get into these programs. Do not wait and risk missing out on the deadlines. If you know what you want to study and where, start applying to the relevant scholarship right away. Your career in the media arts awaits!

Sources:

Canadian Scholarships. “Canada’s Higher Education and Career Guide.” http://www.canadian-universities.net/Scholarships/

Tencer, Daniel. “The Best Cities in Canada To Find A Job Are All In Just 3 Provinces.” The Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/10/09/the-best-cities-in-canada-to-find-a-job-are-all-in-just-3-provinces_a_23235313/