Your 3-Month Post-Graduation Action Plan
Now that you are approaching graduation, it is time to think strategically about what comes next. This assignment asks you to create a personalized, week-by-week action plan for the three months following graduation using an AI tool like Claude (claude.ai).
Why this matters: The job search in animation is competitive and can take time. Students who stay active, keep building their skills, and consistently network are far more likely to land work than those who wait for opportunities to find them. This plan is your roadmap for staying focused and productive after you leave school.
Step 1, Study the Example
Review the sample plan provided by your instructor. Notice how it is organized by phase and week, broken into specific categories like portfolio building, job search, networking, and skill development. Your plan should follow a similar structure but reflect your own background, goals, and situation.
Step 2, Write Your Prompt
Before you generate your plan, you need to write a prompt that gives the AI enough information to create something truly useful for you. Your prompt should include:
- The software you know well and any software you want to learn
- The type of animation work you want to pursue (games, film, TV, commercial, motion graphics, etc.)
- Whether you are open to relocating or looking for remote work
- What accounts or platforms you already have set up (LinkedIn, Behance, ArtStation, etc.)
- Any specific goals, such as targeting internships, building a certain type of reel, or networking in a particular city
- The start date (May 15) and that you want the plan broken down week by week with tasks and estimated hours
Example prompt: “I’m graduating in May with a 2-year animation degree. I already have a LinkedIn and Behance page set up. My strongest software is Cinema 4D, but a lot of job postings I’m seeing ask for Maya, which I don’t know yet. I want to work in 3D animation, ideally in games or film VFX, and I’m open to relocating. I need a 3-month plan starting May 15 that helps me: create a fictitious studio project to build my portfolio and demo reel, post work-in-progress updates on social media to grow my presence, search and apply for jobs each week with customized resumes and cover letters, network and reach out to people in the industry for informational interviews or job shadowing, learn Maya through online tutorials so I can apply for jobs that require it, and stay current on industry news. Please break the plan down week by week with specific tasks and estimated hours for each category.”
Step 3, Generate and Review Your Plan
Paste your prompt into Claude at claude.ai and generate your plan. Read through the full result before accepting it. If something does not fit your situation or feels off, revise your prompt and try again. You can also ask Claude to adjust specific sections, for example, “make Phase 2 more focused on networking” or “add a section on preparing for interviews.”
Step 4, Submit Your Plan
Submit your completed plan document along with a copy of the prompt you used to generate it. You will be evaluated on both.
Evaluation Criteria
- Whether your prompt is specific and thoughtful (not generic)
- Whether the plan reflects your actual goals, software background, and situation
- Whether the plan is realistic and actionable, not just a list of vague intentions
- Evidence that you reviewed and engaged with the output rather than submitting whatever was generated without reading it
A note on AI and this assignment: The goal is not to have AI do the thinking for you, it is to use AI as a planning tool the way professionals use it in the industry. The quality of what you get out depends entirely on the quality of what you put in. A lazy prompt produces a generic plan. A thoughtful prompt produces something you can actually use.