What was your favorite piece of advice that a teacher or student shared with you?

Yun: Always give yourself double the amount of time you think you need to finish a project. Time management and realistically pacing yourself are really important in a cooperative industry like this one.

What advice do you have for next year’s students in your program?

Yao: CGI/VFX is a large industry, and you often work on other peoples’ projects. This is one of the very few opportunities you’ll have where you will have full ownership of your film. Own it!

This interview has been condensed and edited.

For this year’s SVA Alumni Scholarship Awards, 71 students were chosen from a pool of hundreds of applicants and granted scholarships worth $63,500 for dozens of art and multimedia projects. To see a list of the 2023 recipients, click here. For more information about applying for an Alumni Scholarship Award, click here.

To contribute to the Support the Talent campaign, you can make a donation online at sva.edu/give.

The alumni were recognized for their thesis project, ‘Twin Sparks.’