Groups

Mission

Mission
The interest in animation is greater than ever. Groundbreaking animation is in demand, requiring animators to take creative risks.
MICA's Animation Department teaches the art of animation but also teaches creative thinking and flexibility - helping you respond to the ways that technology and science transform the potential of the medium. You are encouraged to develop a personal voice, take creative risks, thrive through collaboration and become innovators in the field.

Department Chair: Nadia Hironaka

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mica_animation

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
BioDesign is a transdisciplinary practice that is technologically, ecologically, and existentially engaged with our more-than-human world.
The BioDesign Co-Major teaches students how to collaborate with living organisms from across the more-than-human world to create novel materials, objects, and approaches to living and working together on this beautiful but challenged planet.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Focusing on fostering an environment that respects the potential of Ceramic’s rich traditions while also integrating and exploring its new potentials, we are a community of learners exploring innovation.

MICA's Ceramics major provides a highly individualized course of study and fosters the development of a student’s personal voice. The curriculum supports technical skills within a framework of innovation and interdisciplinary thinking, and involves students in traditions and contemporary trends in the medium, with an active engagement in critical inquiry.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Open to all majors, MICA’s Creative Entrepreneurship (C/ENTR) Minor prepares students to lead sustainable, impactful creative lives. This program blends studio practice with real-world entrepreneurial strategies, helping artists and designers turn their ideas into viable ventures. Through interactive, hands-on courses, students gain skills in marketing, budgeting, grant writing, social entrepreneurship, project management, contracts, and more—all essential for thriving in the creative economy.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
As a Creative Media Production major at MICA, you’ll build both technical fluency and creative range. You’ll develop core skills in recording, editing, animating, and coding, personalizing your degree by selecting courses in the areas that appeal to you most, from film and animation to game design, sound art, and interactive media.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
As a Design and Innovation major at MICA, you’ll build essential design skills, learning to think across disciplines through a focused yet flexible curriculum with tailored tracks in Graphic Design, Product Design, and Architectural Design. Along the way, you’ll explore big ideas like sustainability, entrepreneurship, and design for social good while working on hands-on projects with community and industry partners.

CO-MAJORS
Co-majors provide additional depth in a specialized area without the full credit load of a double major. You can pursue a co-major in:

- Architectural Design
- Graphic Design
- Product Design

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Graphic Design ● Product Design

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Drawing can inform an artist in a way that is not easily matched ___________________________________________________________________
Learning to draw means learning to discern the qualities of visual forms and the spaces they occupy. We believe that these skills and the creative possibilities explored through drawing are as important for those pursuing a career in the applied arts as they are for the fine artist. To that end, MICA is committed to achieving the highest level of drawing proficiency among its students.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
The Ecosystems, Sustainability, & Justice (ESJ) major will empower students to actively utilize their creative practice to make a more just and sustainable world.
|
Chair: Carissa Aoki

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Textile structure is expressive and physical. The connections between surface, form, material and meaning create a rich terrain to explore. The Fiber major at MICA moves seamlessly between these in fine art and design, from the hand to the digital.

Although there is a strong sculptural emphasis in the major, you'll explore both 2D and 3D approaches, and many fiber students create work that involves installations, performance, video, and other cross-disciplinary approaches.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
MICA's Film & Video major gives visual artists the skills to produce, examine, and critique moving images of all kinds.

You will study the history of fine artists working in the medium and gain sound technical skills in creating time-based art through projects in the field and in the studio. The ability to delve into a variety of electives and film genres - from experimental to installation to documentary - lets you explore and experiment as you realize film and video's full potential for personal expression. If you are interested in narrative and documentary film, you can pursue the department's Filmmaking concentration.

Interim Department Chair: Erin Johnson

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Printmaking ● General Fine Arts ● Painting ● Drawing

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
MICA's First Year Experience has been crafted to provide a rigorous, integrated curriculum that reflects the diversity of our people and our learning pathways.

Students are challenged by courses that share a philosophy of learning through making-thinking-exploring-reflecting and honor the needs of individuals to define their relationship to the world as artists and designers. The program assists students as they consider their major options, providing a breadth of experiences while promoting in-depth thinking and skill development.

2019 First Year Experience Overview:
The entering class of Fall 2019 will benefit from a significant redesign of MICA's First Year Experience. As in the former Foundation Program, this new program will be a commonly shared experience for all entering students and will precede the choice of a major, which will take place in the spring semester.

The new First Year Experience design is in response to the rapid changes in art, design and technology, and the intersections between them that are occurring today. It has been crafted to provide a rigorous, integrated curriculum that reflects the diversity of our people and our learning pathways.

Changes for Fall 2019 include moving to a more flexible curriculum of inter-related courses addressing contemporary art and design practice. First-year students will continue to be engaged in traditional skill building through a more trans-disciplinary approach. This is built into to the new curriculum and is offered through the six credit core Forum as well as electives based in 2D, 3D, and 4D media. Students will also have more opportunity to work collaboratively on project-based enterprises and activities.

Additionally, the new first-year curriculum will be more tailored to the individual, increasing the number of choices, and allowing students more agency to design their own personal and professional pathway.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
No longer just popular entertainment, games are their own art form.

At MICA, we explore games from a unique perspective that can only be found at an art and design college. Our program explores the role of play in our culture and questions how games are used to entertain, educate and create meaning.

Department Director: Sam Sheffield
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/micagamelab
Curriculum: https://www.mica.edu/academic-catalog/undergraduate-curriculum/2019-20-game-design-curriculum/
Course List: https://www.mica.edu/undergraduate-majors-minors/course-lists/game-design-course-list/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Versatility and exploration - this is what you can expect from MICA's General Fine Arts major. _______________________ In keeping with MICA's emphasis on interdisciplinary exploration balanced by solid training in traditional skills, the GFA major lets you shape a unique major from the full range of courses offered by the College's fine arts departments. Students who choose to major in GFA tend to be independent, enjoy incorporating various mediums into their work and are highly motivated to become versatile, resourceful artists. As a GFA major, you select courses to create a program of study that is interdisciplinary, theme-centered, or of some other cross-media or multimedia construction. _______________________ Department Chair: Rex Stevens _______________________ Instagram: @mica.generalfinearts _______________________ For more info, visit: shorturl.at/achHO

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Graphic design is one of the most powerful forms of communication.

Design is commercial, social, public, and political. It shapes the meaning and impact of books, magazines, apps, websites, posters, advertisements, games, logos, film titles, and countless other media. Everywhere you look, designers are using words and images to penetrate people's hearts and minds. Our program shapes designers to think conceptually and apply technical skills in all forms of design practice.

We see graphic design as a comprehensive activity of visual problem solving for professional leaders working in branding, UI/UX, packaging, spatial design, publication design, and typeface design, among others. Our graduates bring the ability to think and make critically and to thrive as professional designers.

Interim Department Chair: Kristian Bjornard
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mica_gd
Curriculum: https://www.mica.edu/academic-catalog/undergraduate-curriculum/2019-20-graphic-design-curriculum/
Course List: https://www.mica.edu/undergraduate-majors-minors/course-lists/graphic-design-course-list/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Students in MICA's art history program become both artmakers and scholars of art.

While pursuing intensive study in the history of art, students also train as artists and designers, taking the majority of their coursework in studio areas-a defining advantage that allows them to analyze the process of art production as a component of their research.
|
Department Chair: Victoria Pass
|
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micaarthistory

Membership Benefits

Mission

Membership Benefits

Mission

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
As an Interactive Arts student at MICA, you will improvise, innovate, experiment, and play as you create unique, interactive experiences across an array of traditional and emerging media.

Interactive Arts majors learn how to integrate art with technology, build robots, make games, work with VR/AR, and create performances and unique experiences, all in a variety of media and materials. Through a process of creative inquiry based on learning by doing, you will become comfortable with new and emerging technologies and prepare for careers in the fields of experience/interactive design or as fine artists who work with interactive media.

Career Opportunities
You can gain professional experience through internships, and some of our majors have recently landed at Discovery Communications; Digital Harbor Foundation; The Smithsonian; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and CODE2040, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping underrepresented minorities find professional and entrepreneurial success in technology. IA majors have an excellent track record of starting their own businesses (Friends of the Web, Brinkbit), as well as working at a wide range of firms and agencies where they tend to focus on emerging media and experience design.

Interim Department Chair: Jason Sloan
Curriculum: https://www.mica.edu/academic-catalog/undergraduate-curriculum/2019-20-interactive-arts-curriculum/
Course List: https://www.mica.edu/undergraduate-majors-minors/course-lists/interactive-arts-course-list/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Sculpture is contemporary art's meta-medium, where artists cross boundaries, invent hybrid processes, and explore innovative content in the areas of object-making, installation, performance, contextual practice, socially-engaged work, time-based art, and digital forms.

In pursuit of a B.F.A., students of Interdisciplinary Sculpture develop the conceptual content of their work concurrently with practical, hands-on knowledge of materials and fabrication techniques, enabling them to produce work relevant to their personal vision. Classes offered within the department combine theory and practice and encourage students to develop transdisciplinary, multimedia approaches to their work and invent collaborations with new audiences and communities. Through this innovative curriculum, students are exposed to a broad range of creative possibilities within the material, spatial, and non-static arts and develop a range of conceptual skills and strategies that allow them to realize content in inventive ways. Students explore both experimental and established approaches to art making.

Courses within the department allow students to build a solid base of constructive and technical skills by working in such areas as wood, metal fabrication, mold-making, casting, assembling, laser cutting, 3D printing, rapid-prototyping, welding, carving, and fabrication. Students are encouraged to further explore content in video installation, performance, time-based art, photo-sculpture hybrids, 3D computing, and other newer genres, and are challenged to use these skills to make work that is relevant in our complex, diverse, and ever-changing global culture. Our accomplished faculty provides the theoretical and historical framework to assist majors in developing a sophisticated critical/self-analytical awareness of their practice, and its place within the larger culture.

Interdisciplinary Sculpture students are encouraged to develop technical mastery, conceptual sophistication, and an understanding of newer and emerging genres; to explore contemporary issues, ideas, and technologies; and to create a practice that recognizes the past while envisioning the future.

Department Chair: Sarah Doherty

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micasculpture
Curriculum: https://www.mica.edu/academic-catalog/undergraduate-curriculum/interdisciplinary-sculpture/
Course List: https://www.mica.edu/undergraduate-majors-minors/course-lists/interdisciplinary-sculpture-course-list/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Building upon MICA's strong foundation in art and design, you will learn thoughtful, human-centered design for a future interior design career. This program is aligned with nationally recognized certification.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Liberal Arts is the division for majors and minors in Art History, Theory and Criticism and Studio & Humanistic Studies. All undergraduate students take courses in the Liberal Arts throughout their time at MICA.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Liberal Arts: History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture ● Humanistic Studies ● ELL ● ESJ (Studio)

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Interdisciplinary Sculpture ● Fiber ● Ceramics ● Architectural Design
Chair: Interdisciplinary Sculpture (IS, BioFab): Ben Luzzatto

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
MICA's Painting department is ranked as one of the best in the country, an accomplishment that provides painting majors with many opportunities and greater visibility for their achievements. ____________________
Our Painting department is distinguished by both tradition and rebellion. The program celebrates the development of strong painting and drawing skills, an exploration of old and new forms (representational and abstract, 2D, and 3D), and an appreciation of independent, personal expression and risk-taking. ____________________ Top Graduate Schools ____________________ Our Painting majors are consistently accepted into the country's top ten fine arts graduate programs, including those at MICA, Yale, Columbia, ISD, and the Cranbrook Academy. Many have received prestigious awards, grants, and fellowships, such as the Fulbright Fellowship, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, and the Freeman-ASIA Award. ____________________ Interim Department Chair: Bob Salazar ____________________ Instagram: @micapaints ____________________
For more info, please visit: shorturl.at/aegpT

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
One of the first programs of its kind worldwide, the photography program at MICA was established more than 100 years ago.

Building on this legacy, the program today thoroughly examines both film and digital photography while encouraging a diversity of approaches. Students master technical skills as they work in state-of-the-art digital facilities, learn traditional and alternative darkroom processes, and develop a deep understanding of the medium's history and contemporary directions.

Our Facilities
The facilities in the photography department provide a professional workspace, including state of the art digital labs, a professional lighting studio and portable lighting systems, fully equipped traditional black and white darkrooms, and facilities for antiquarian and alternative processes. The department's courses and facilities also serve students in other majors who have met course prerequisites.

Department Chair: Jay Gould
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micaphotophotos/
Curriculum: https://www.mica.edu/academic-catalog/undergraduate-curriculum/2019-20-photography-curriculum/
Course List: https://www.mica.edu/undergraduate-majors-minors/course-lists/photography-course-list/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
MICA’s Printmaking major offers a comprehensive print media education delivered in an incredible new 20,000 sq ft facility dedicated to the art of Print, Book and Paper.

The department’s approach is contemporary, supports a breadth of fine art and design interests, values experimentation, and is empowered by research.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
At MICA, product design is both local and global, integrative and individual, craft and business. To prepare to design products for a rapidly changing world, students here work with expert faculty - and a host of decision makers, industry leaders, activists, and entrepreneurs from around the globe.

The fusion of 3D design, technology, and making is expanding the definition of "product" and influencing how humans respond aesthetically and practically with every imaginable object today - from furniture and apparel to appliances and medical devices. And anyone with a Fitbit or smartphone recognizes that new connections between things and systems are changing the way we live.

Interim Department Chair: Karl Williamson

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mica_productdesign/

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
MICA's studio minor in Sound Art provides an in-depth grounding in sound as an expressive medium. Through the study of the sonic arts at MICA, you will develop an understanding of the countless ways musical composers, sound artists, and visual artists can conceive of an develop sound as a unique and powerful work of art.

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
Our Studio and Humanistic Studies major has been carefully crafted to help you create a conceptual and critical framework for inquiry into art and design.

This integrated major fully combines in-depth coursework in academics and studio to prepare practicing artists who will contribute to our culture as creators and thinkers.
|
Department Chair: Elizabeth Wagenheim
|
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micahumanists

Membership Benefits

Mission

Mission
The BDes in User Experience (UX) Design is a flexible, career-focused undergraduate degree that prepares you to design apps, websites, and digital products that are useful, inclusive, and beautifully made. You’ll learn how to understand real user needs, turn insights into solutions, and create high-fidelity prototypes you can test, refine, and present—just like UX teams do in the field.

Membership Benefits