HD in Animation at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Canada is a higher diploma in Film & Animation programme. The programme runs for 3 years, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 16,358 per year (CAD 2,882 per year for local students).
The programme builds a foundation in concept generation, composition, visual communication, performance animation, filmic storytelling, and 2D and 3D image construction, developed through a progressive set of exercises, assignments, projects and collaborative work. Students use hand-drawn and CG processes covering idea generation and planning, modelling, construction, rigging, texturing, lighting and animating, alongside pre-production skills such as writing for story structure and character, figure drawing and traditional design drawing for environments, characters, storyboards and animatics. Production coursework covers performance animation techniques, digital construction and rigging on laptop computers, building CG props and environments, and camera, rendering and editing to complete a production, with the skills described as transferable to entertainment, gaming, virtual reality and commercial or industrial work. Nude models are used in the life drawing course that forms part of the curriculum.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Mohawk states the same academic requirements for domestic and international applicants, and adds a portfolio.
ACADEMIC ENTRY: an OSSD or its equivalent (Mohawk Academic Upgrading or GED) including Grade 12 English at the C or U level or equivalent. Mohawk also publishes a mature-applicant route for people without the school credits.
PORTFOLIO: an animation portfolio is submitted through Mohawk's own submission page. Apply through ontariocolleges.ca first - Mohawk states that a portfolio arriving without a valid ontariocolleges.ca applicant number is neither accepted nor considered, so the application has to come before the portfolio.
ENGLISH, where it is not your first language (Mohawk lists these as stand-ins for the Grade 12 English credit, and they apply to domestic and international applicants alike): IELTS Academic 6.0 overall with no band under 5.5; or TOEFL iBT 80 (paper-based 550); or Duolingo 105-110 with no band under 100; or finishing Mohawk’s General Arts and Science - English for Academic Purposes program (478).
Application Details
Start Date:Starts Mohawk lists on this program’s own page, checked 6 September 2026. Domestic applicants: September 2026 at Fennell Campus (FF). International applicants: September intake. Mohawk runs a Fall term from September, a Winter term from January and a Spring/Summer term from May; not every program runs every term, and the seat status shown beside a start (open, waitlist, closed) moves as intakes fill.
Application Deadline:Mohawk publishes no deadline unique to this program; the dates below are the college-wide ones.
DOMESTIC APPLICANTS (Canadian citizens and permanent residents) apply through ontariocolleges.ca. Equal consideration date: 1 February for a September start. Applications that reach Ontario Colleges by then are read together in the first round of offers. Applying afterwards is still allowed, but remaining seats go first-come, first-served, and a competitive program is usually full by that point. Where a program draws more qualified applicants than it has seats, Mohawk ranks them on the average of their highest senior-level final grades in the required courses, and offers go to Ontario permanent residents first, then residents of other Canadian provinces and territories, then international applicants.
INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS (citizens of another country without Canadian permanent residence) do not use the equal consideration dates. They apply through the OCAS International Application Service, which sets a separate deadline for each intake rather than one annual date; the current list is on Mohawk’s international apply page. Files arriving after a deadline are judged on remaining program capacity, visa status and study-permit processing time for the applicant’s region, and Mohawk states it may cap applications or impose deadlines by region. The CAD 100 application fee is non-refundable and covers up to two program choices starting in the same August-to-July academic year.
