My teacher said that I should change my art style…

What you should do is research the schools you want to go to, as well as careers you want to be in, and find out from current students/alumni/working professionals whether anime style is something that they think will hinder your career or not. There is absolutely an old-fashioned attitude that dismisses anime-like art in the art world - but whether it's something you need to care about or not is dependent on where you want to end up. Some places it will absolutely close doors for you, and others it wouldn't matter.

Also, critically analyze whether you've ever used "but it's my style" as an excuse. I've never been to art school, but some of my friends are professional artists and art teachers and they've definitely had classmates and students who would, for example, refuse to draw anything but sock feet because "it's their cartoony style", while in reality they just didn't like/didn't know how to draw toes. In those cases their teachers would be absolutely in the right to tell them to "change" their style.

sounds like my highschool teacher. told me that art is not a career. comics and animation is a useless job that is only for hacks and i would never get into so i should give up now...

nothing new here

tbh this is deliberately universal that art teachers really dislike cartoons and see it as garbage. (there are probably ones that dont act like this but i havent seen it) take what they say about it with a grain of salt. if they want to teach you the fundamentals, sure but if you decided to use that to draw in a more cartoony or anime way, then thats your choice.

The point is, anime-style is stylized drawing, before you can go to stylized, first you need to be able to draw realism and master anatomy drawing, in other words, stylized drawing is the next level after you master the realistic drawing. And who is the audience your drawing targeted to?
If you're planning your drawing targeted to younger and adult teen audiences and can be accepted around the globe especially in Asia then anime and manhwa style is preferable. If your targeted audiences are adults and older adults then realism or semi-realism is preferable. In my opinion.

Your teacher is right. You should try more styles, especially realism. That doesn't mean you should drop anime style though, you can always draw as much anime style as you like, but only pick a few for your portfolio. Your portfolio should include other styles too, mostly realism.

You can still draw anime style art, but I highly recommend learning to be flexible. I've been drawing manga since I was a teenager, and early in my career, back in the 00s, most of my paid work was manga style. I'd been a finalist in the Tokyopop UK and Ireland Rising Stars of Manga and placed in the Manga Jiman competition (a manga competition still run by the Japanese Embassy in London), and manga was booming at the time, so I could pretty much be a full-time manga style artist on commissions and manga workshops....

But then came the "great manga crash of 09". Tokyopop imploded and Manga became incredibly unfashionable for a few years. Terms like "animu" and "weeb" being synonymous with bad art on places like Tumblr in the 2010s. Plus the UK voted in a conservative government, so schools and libraries no longer had the funding for something as frivolous as a manga workshop, meaning I needed to look for other income streams. It was basically evolve or die for me. I learned digital painting and 3D modelling and did a lot of painted and modelled game art during the next ten years, and the vast majority of my comissions were in a more generic cartoon art style. At the end of the 2010s, thanks in a fairly large part to the popularity of Korean webtoons, it finally started to become a bit more acceptable to draw in an anime-influenced art style. Errant, which I started drawing in 2019, was pretty much the first thing I'd drawn in my manga style in ages (which is why the early pages look a bit more like an indie comic than the later ones). My outside commissions mostly still aren't manga style though.

So... don't throw away your passion for manga, but if you want to go pro, like seriously make a living and a long-term career as an illustrator, games artist or comic artist, it's a good idea to be flexible. Fashions change, the products people use art for change, the kinds of comics people read change and a lot of comics work in countries like the UK are licensed and require you to work to strict style guidelines. You can have manga as your personal default signature style, and maybe if you're lucky, that's the style you'll make money from and it'll be awesome, but it's a bad idea to have "luck" as a vital part of your business plan.

Well most people gave answers already, but I wouldn't abandon your art style. If you are forced to draw in a style you are not comfortable with it'll impact you negatively.

That said, it wouldn't hurt to try and look at other styles, not necessarily to draw but maybe to learn from them. Like if you struggle to draw anatomy related stuff in your art style (not assuming you are) it might be worth it to do a bit of research in art that does these things well, even if they are not anime. And even in anime there are a lot of varied styles if you know where to look

I disagree with several people about your teacher. I think she is giving you sound advice. Part of pursuing any sort of craft or profession is becoming versatile and having a wide understanding of it. There's nothing wrong about drawing in a specific style in your free time, but if you pursue art as your profession, you should definitely change your style (if it is mostly anime).

I would advice getting into realism, and then branching into different fields. In the end this would strengthen your anime style illustrations and you will be incorporating what you'll learn from different styles and mediums.

Anyways, I think your teacher is giving you a great advice.

Most artists working have to draw in multiple styles, depending on the project.
getting to draw in your own "style" is a unique thing on the internet, and getting paid for it is rare. I mean. its why were all trying to make our comics..

From my experience, If you're style is effective, developing a stronger and broader foundation will just make what your doing more sustainable and applicable for more opportunities. Personally, I have been told I have a style despite developing skills in realism, cartoon, and urban graphic style. (take Consideration my quality of work before taking my advice)

I do know often times portfolios aren't based as much on how "good" or "skilled" the applicants are. It's more about how they would fit for the type of projects. Most of the successful engineers I know have an above average foundation skillset in many areas of their field. We just see their pursuit of projects that they are most experienced fit in. I imagine art is very similar.

I'll echo what a lot of other folks have been saying here about drawing how you want. Being passionate about your art is one of the most important components of being a professional artist, and one of the best ways to tap into that passion is to draw things for yourself sometimes, like drawing things in an anime style.
BUT. I want to float an idea to you, as a fellow artist that started out drawing anime and was told by teachers to stop. Starting out in a stylized art form hurt my fundamentals. Professional anime artists don't just draw anime. They do real life studies too, because there are fundamental and essential art skills that only real life studies can teach you. Things like proper lighting, shape and form, anatomy, perspective (particularly things like zoom lens perspective vs close lens perspective), foreshortening etc. etc.
Anime is a stylized interpretation of real life, and it relies on an understanding of that core structure. I think about offsets a lot in art. An aesthetic is just real life with some particular offsets applied. When an artist's anime technique looks refined and skilled it's because they've referenced real life and then translated it into a stylized form. When you start from a stylized perspective, it's just an interpretation of someone else's stylization, and you won't grasp what things to exaggerate, or the core structure underneath, because you don't have the fundamentals down. You won't understand why or how to properly draw it.
Again, I started by drawing anime when I was younger too. It's the reason I got serious about art in the first place. BUT my resistance to drawing things from real life stagnated my growth, and saddled me with some bad habits that were very difficult to break.
So I guess what I'm saying is that studying real life will give you a deeper understanding of anime. Which is what you're striving for anyway, right?

Draw however you want. Be open to other styles, as you'll have to learn them if you go to art school, and it does help in the long run. But your style is your style. Don't let anyone, and certainly not a teacher, tell you you have to draw differently. I didn't go to art school for college, but I had a very encouraging art teacher in high school who couldnt have given two shits that I was drawing anime. All she cared about was I was doing SOMETHING creative and that I was developing a style to begin with.

To be honest, this comes up far too often. "Anime isn't art" "you're not a real artist if you draw anime" "you're not allowed to draw anime if you're not japanese" "you're not in japan, so your art isn't actually anime." Like my god, shut up already. Who are these people to say what's art? It bothers me so much when I hear this, especially when it comes from art teachers of all people.

change... to learn. that's it.
LEARN!
learn is the duty.
if u do not learn, u ll not know.
if u ll not know... how ll u understand what s your way?

u ll be always allowed to draw how you wish.
the school ll teach you different skills n worlds, and that is what everyone need.

I've self-taught, gone to college, apprenticed, and taught others. I don't think we have enough information to determine the teachers motivations, but let's assume this teacher just wants to see you excel and is trying to guide you based on their experience.

The question will eventually boil down to what you want to do with your art. If you just want to draw what you like you certainly don't need to accrue massive debt to do so, there are plenty of ways to learn. Certainly many of us started drawing because it made us happy and for many, that is enough.

If you want to earn a living doing commercial art in advertising or animation or other careers, school can be a benefit. But, whether you are at an agency, in an animation bullpen, drawing comic book pages, or just working freelance, very often you will be asked to draw in someone else's style. So having a broad pallet to draw from is an asset. But this doesn't mean you can't develop your own. This may be what your teacher is encouraging you to pursue.

From my own experience, I often felt a similar way about the style I drew in. But the truth was (and this may not be you), I lacked confidence that I could do anything else or I just dreaded the feeling of starting all over again. However, when I was pushed to expand my skill set, it had a profoundly positive effect on my own style. Sometimes we all need a friendly nudge.

That said, schools have pitfalls... crippling debt being foremost. There are rubber-stamp schools where every one gets a passing grade if their tuition is paid on time, regardless of their skill. There are teachers who don't teach because they perceive their students as competition. There are teachers who have skill, but don't know how (or have the patience) to share their knowledge. There are teachers who only produce clones because they never pushed themselves out of their comfort-zone. And the big con... Artsy-Fartsy. Those are schools/teachers that expound on art as some nebulous, magical, undefinable thing that can't truly be taught... that's total BS.

The only thing that can't be taught, is the desire to learn.

A wise and skilled artist friend who can pull off many diverse art styles told me it's all about mastering the fundamentals in art, like anatomy, perspective, lightning and shapes among others.

Does that means to give up anime style?: nope

Trying different styles can help you notice common patterns when it comes to art in general.

For the sake of college, and for the sake of getting jobs, i recommend you to become a flexible artist with solid fundamentals.