People get college degrees for many different lines of work. Cosplays and costuming for many has become a full time profession and it requires learning many different skills and techniques. So what degree do you need to be a cosplayer full time? You actually won’t necessarily need one at all. The thing with cosplaying, is you won’t be subjected to an interview or submit a resume with your background. Entering things like competitions or obtaining sponsorships as a cosplayer is really more dependent on your skills overall and your audience size. That doesn’t mean you can’t get a degree though that can help educate in costuming and cosplays. So then that raises the question of what degrees are relevant to cosplay?
Degrees for Cosplayers
There’s a lot of different majors that can help you as a cosplayer if you are looking to make it a full time gig. However it is a very challenging task to achieve so I don’t recommend only choosing a college major based on cosplay. However if these degrees line up with your other job passions then the good news is they can also benefit you in cosplay.
- Fashion/Costume Design – I feel this one is a little obvious. Fashion obviously plays a big role in cosplays with understanding the crafting, materials and design of clothing and costumes. Thus this major can very easily work for expanding your knowledge for cosplay.
- Theatre – With an exhibition category as it is in cosplay competitions, theatre definitely can be a good major for cosplayers looking to advance their skills. Being able to immerse into character and better understanding film and stage can be helped by getting educated more on theatre and often times performing on stage has a costume component to it.
- Fine Arts – From drawing to photography, a fine arts degree has many applications to cosplay. Master digital art to edit beautiful pictures or learn to be a skilled photographer that can capture talented cosplay models.
- Business and Marketing – This one is definitely different from the others. It definitely is less artistic, but if you want to turn cosplay into a full time job, it can help. Learning how to run it like a business and best market yourself is a must as a cosplayer.
The main take away though is no, you don’t need a degree to be a professional cosplayer. Companies will not ask you what your college degree is when determining whether to sponsor you. Contests definitely won’t ask either when picking winners. You shouldn’t base your college major strictly around cosplay since it is a huge life decision. However the above are common majors and it is always possible you might be desiring a career in those fields. This is just how those majors can be applied to the life of a full time cosplayer.