By Tatiana Nicole Smith
Zamir Ramirez ‘19 (B.A. English and education sciences) is constantly finding himself on a new team. As an animation production coordinator hired project to project, he works to build relationships with new groups of people that lead to the creation of films and TV shows at studios like Marvel, Nickelodeon and Netflix. And while Ramirez’s job as a coordinator requires organization and technicality, interpersonal relationships are at the heart of it.
“At the end of the day, you see your coworkers even more than your own family,” he says, highlighting the importance of cultivating relationships in one’s career. Using his background as an English major at UC Irvine, Ramirez exemplifies how the humanities taught him something more valuable to his career than technical skills – they taught him the value of community.
The skills to succeed
When Ramirez started at UCI in 2014, he never expected he would eventually work in animation. He entered as a computer science major, but didn’t enjoy the strict and intensely competitive environment. “It felt like a race to the top,” he remembers.
He shared his concerns with one of his high school English teachers, a mentor with whom he had kept in touch. His teacher reminded him that he had always been a skilled writer, and this conversation ultimately inspired Ramirez to switch his major to English and education sciences.
He enjoyed the increased socialization and camaraderie that resulted from discussion-based classes in the humanities – a stark difference from the computer science program. “Most of my friends were from the School of Humanities,” he recalls. “We all had this common bonding of reading the same texts, and class discussion was at the heart of everything, creating a kind of social glue.
Ramirez also appreciated how the structure of the English major was “very freeform,” allowing him to take classes on everything from Boethius to Dostoevski. With the ability to choose classes that interested him, he felt encouraged to seek out information on his own, making him a stronger critical thinker. This freedom also allowed him to pursue his interests in other subjects, including animation and gaming.
Taking steps forward
In 2018, Ramirez secured an internship with Machinima, an animation and gaming network. At the company, he discovered an aptitude for animation production and pursued his interests in this area. Although he did not have a background in animation, Ramirez used the skills in teaching, learning and communication he had gained from his English and education degrees to pave the way for his career.
He emphasizes, “I didn’t go to school for film and animation. I went so I could know how to think, how to learn and how to understand.”
After graduating from UCI in 2019, Ramirez landed an internship with Nickelodeon Animation Studios. In 2021, he was hired at Nickelodeon as a design art production coordinator for The Casagrandes, an animated children’s sitcom about a Mexican-American family. Working as a production coordinator requires him to be constantly communicating with his design team in order to keep them on track and solve issues that arise during the animation process. “I have to find the right words to communicate a problem, since everything in the job comes down to language and the words you use,” Ramirez says. With important foundational skills in communication, Ramirez thrived in his new position, and in 2022, he was hired as a production coordinator for the Casagrandes movie, solidifying his position in the animation industry.
A professional community
Reflecting on his educational experience, Ramirez stresses the importance of his extracurricular activities at UCI in helping him prepare for his future career. He refers to his English and education degrees as his “certificates of competency,” yet he emphasizes that his extracurriculars were what drove him to get jobs since “they are the door into the experience-based world we live in.”
Ramirez’s collection of extracurriculars is extensive, but he specifically highlights his participation in Hermanos Unidos, a student advocacy organization focused on promoting excellence for Latino and Chicano males in higher education. Serving as the fundraising and co-chair for the UCI chapter, Ramirez recalls that one of the biggest lessons he learned was how to build a professional community.
“The three pillars of Hermanos were community service, academics and social networking,” he shares. “We call it social networking because we want to highlight the relationship component. It’s not just about finding people who can benefit you – it’s about being there for each other.”
In 2025, Ramirez was hired for his current position as an animation production coordinator at Marvel, where he continues to foster community among his coworkers. He specifically works with the design side of animation, helping artists complete their assignments and ensure that their art references are accurate. A job like this requires careful organization so a project stays on track, but Ramirez stresses the importance of focusing on relationships first.
“I’m working in a very creative, human field, so I can’t be too focused on the system,” he explains. “If my coworkers aren’t responding to it, if they’re avoiding my calls, if no one’s showing up – then I’m not doing my job. The real goal is to create a community.”
The story in starting over
Being hired from project to project, Ramirez is always on the look out for his next position. “Every year is a different gig, and every year I have to fight for my gig,” he says.
Ramirez, however, loves the process of ending one project and beginning another. “There’s something beautiful about the first and last day of every job,” he reflects. “On the first day, you have all of those jitters, and you get to meet all these wonderful people that want the show to succeed. And the last day feels bittersweet because no show goes on forever.”
As Ramirez moves to different assignments, he emphasizes the importance of crafting a career narrative to show employers how he went from being an English and education major at UC Irvine to working in animation production. “I can present a narrative of my entire career and explain how I got here, and I can go as far back as middle school,” he explains. “This is how I’ve continued my career so far, and I really credit that to my English degree.”
Through it all, Ramirez holds on to his community network in animation. He says, “It’s a small industry, and everyone knows each other, so whenever a project ends, we’re always like, ‘See you later!’”
Within this tight-knit community, where everyone is “a friend of a friend,” he finds not only his next projects but also the camaraderie that makes the work meaningful. At its core, Ramirez believes animation is about human connection both behind the scenes and on screen. “People want to see something beautiful,” he says. “They want to see a piece of art that a group of people came together to create.”
Tatiana Smith is a fourth-year English major at UCI and a Communications Assistant for the School of Humanities.
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