Maryland Institute College of Art

Animation

Animation is a growing field with career possibilities in entertainment studios, independent film, and new media such as video games. MICA's program fosters professional skills while encouraging personal voice, balancing hand-made and new technology with acting, storytelling, and critical thinking.

ANIMATION & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Architectural Design

The discipline of architecture is inherently multifaceted, with spatial, social, and cultural considerations framing every project. MICA's Architectural Design major augments the practice through interactions with allied fine arts and design disciplines, preparing students to be nimble, thoughtful practitioners. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

ART EDUCATION

Art Education (Teaching)

The B.F.A./M.A.T. is a five-year dual-degree program designed to help students make the transition from artist to artist-teacher. Housed in the Hurwitz Center for Art Education, it is a Maryland State Approved Program for art teacher certification in grades pre-K-12.

ART HISTORY, THEORY & CRITICISM

ARTS EDUCATION

Business for Creatives (Online)

The Master in Professional Studies in Business for Creatives (M.P.S. BCR) is a flexible, 30-credit graduate program designed to equip creative professionals with the strategic, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills necessary to thrive in today's innovation-driven economy. Offered fully online with year-round start dates, the program features three distinct specialization tracks, each culminating in a real-world capstone project.

Business of Art & Design (Online)

The Master in Professional Studies in the Business of Art and Design (M.P.S. BAD) is a unique master's degree program with two tracks providing concentrated education in business management specifically for artists, designers, and related professions. This program is discontinued to new admissions and closed to new enrollment.

Ceramics

MICA's Ceramics Department provides a highly individualized course of study focused on experimentation and exploration, fostering a student's personal voice through engagement with the ceramics medium in all its forms. Students explore ceramics' varied role in fine and applied arts, industry, and design. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

CERAMICS & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Community Arts

The M.F.A. in Community Arts program prepares artists to use their artmaking as a means of civic, youth, and community development, activism, education and more. The program provides a thorough grounding in theory and practice, beginning with coursework that highlights the relationship between the artist, art, and community.

CREATIVE MEDIA PRODUCTION

CRITICAL STUDIES

Curatorial Practice

The first M.F.A. of its kind in the country, MICA's M.F.A. in Curatorial Practice offers a hands-on curriculum that balances collaboration and socially engaged practices with academic research in history and theory. By creating real-world collaborative and individual exhibitions, students raise awareness, bridge societal gaps, and catalyze exchanges across various disciplines.

Data Analytics & Visualization (Online)

The Data Analytics and Visualization program is an online, cohort based graduate program where all coursework is directly related to this expanding field. Students explore both the design and technical aspects of information visualization while learning to create powerful, data-driven visual narratives.

DESIGN AND INNOVATION

DESIGN BUSINESS

DESIGN ESSENTIALS

Design Leadership (Online)

In the Design Leadership M.A./M.B.A., students master creative approaches to strategic decision-making while learning to apply these skills to complex management challenges and business opportunities, earning a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Art (M.A.) from MICA.

DESIGN STRATEGY

Drawing

MICA is committed to achieving the highest level of drawing proficiency among its students, serving as both a foundation for other departments and a resource for upper-level electives. The course of study is intentionally broad and open, encouraging students to develop and pursue their own vision. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

DRAWING & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Ecosystems, Sustainability & Justice

The Ecosystems, Sustainability, & Justice (ESJ) major empowers students to actively utilize their creative practice to make a more just and sustainable world. Coursework integrates studio research with contemporary topics revolving around environmental and social justice issues.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

ENVRNMNTL DESIGN & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Fiber

Textile structure is expressive and physical, with connections between surface, form, material, and meaning creating a rich terrain to explore. Students in Fiber create work involving installations, performance, video, construction, and other cross-disciplinary approaches that move between 2D and 3D thinking.

FIBER & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Filmmaking

The M.F.A. in Filmmaking prepares students to contribute meaningfully to a field that is evolving rapidly, geographically dispersed, global in scope, and vibrant in Baltimore. The curriculum provides a broad understanding of cinematic history as well as diverse technical experiences, sharing facilities with Johns Hopkins University's Film and Media Studies program and connecting with the Maryland Film Festival.

Film & Video

The MICA Film & Video program provides students with the conceptual and technical skills to create video art, experimental documentaries, short films, and video installations. All majors complete an internship for expanded experience outside the College. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

FILM & VIDEO & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

FINE ARTS

Game Design

In MICA's Game Design program, students explore games as a creative practice that can entertain, educate, and create social change. Working in a team-based, open lab model, students learn to make games from prototype to finished form. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

General Fine Arts

For the student artist who wishes to shape a personal major from courses offered by the whole range of MICA's departments, the General Fine Arts Department offers a flexible, interdisciplinary degree plan. Students plan their courses carefully to fulfill a personal, cross-media direction grounded in solid training in traditional skills.

GENERAL FINE ARTS

GENERAL FINE ARTS & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Graphic Design

Graphic Design communicates visually across diverse media and platforms, operating in commercial, social, and political spheres. MICA's curriculum follows a three-year sequence of core courses in typography and visual design fundamentals, building essential timeless skills while adapting to current trends.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

GRAPHIC DESIGN & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Graphic Design (M.A.)

MICA's M.A. in Graphic Design (GDMA) program provides an in-depth study of the language and practice of graphic design with an emphasis on process, visual research, and working across media. This full-time immersive program prepares students for advancing their careers and/or for applying to competitive M.F.A. programs at MICA and other colleges and universities.

Graphic Design (M.F.A.)

M.F.A. Graphic Design students at MICA are encouraged to view themselves as cultural producers, practical visionaries, and utopian entrepreneurs who actively initiate projects. The 60-credit curriculum engages students in a mix of critical seminars, guided studio courses, and independent work, serving as an advanced lab for experimentation in practice-based design.

History of Art, Design and Visual Culture

MICA offers an undergraduate major in the History of Art, Design and Visual Culture, providing a unique opportunity to pursue a B.F.A. degree in art history within the context of a top college of art and design. The curriculum balances academic coursework and independent research with a significant studio component.

Illustration

The M.A. in Illustration is an intensive immersion with a focus on studio work and professional practices, preparing students to build a compelling portfolio, create an intentional practice and articulate their place in the field of illustration. The degree culminates in independent work in the form of a capstone portfolio project, exhibition, and review panel.

Illustration

Illustration is art for the people, created to be seen, enjoyed, and judged by general audiences rather than art specialists. The major is not defined by a specific medium, and departmental courses provide technical and conceptual preparation for students to become engaged professionals.

ILLUSTRATION & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Illustration Practice

Illustration Practice is a field unbound by specific media yet rooted in storytelling and ideas that intellectually and emotionally engage the public. The Illustration Practice M.F.A. prompts students to examine and reinvent the practice of illustration in order to transform their authorial voice and pioneer the future of illustration in a two-year, 60-credit, full-time program.

INFORMATION AND DATA VISUALIZATION

Interactive Arts

Interactive Arts students learn how to build robots, make games, and create sound art in a variety of media and materials. Through creative inquiry based on learning by doing, students develop a personal practice that integrates new and traditional materials and forms across games, sound art, and robotic arts.

Interdisciplinary Sculpture

Sculpture is contemporary art's meta-medium, where artists cross boundaries, invent hybrid processes, and explore innovative content in object-making, installation, performance, site-work, time-based art, and digital forms. Students develop conceptual content concurrently with practical, hands-on knowledge of materials and fabrication techniques.

INTRDSCPLNRY SCLPTRE & HUMANSTIC STUDIES

Leroy E. Hoffberger School of Painting

The L. E. Hoffberger School of Painting offers a select group of highly motivated painters a responsive, dynamic, and participatory community within which to develop and sustain a rigorous individual practice and position their painting within the contemporary art world. A total of 60 credits is required, of these, 48 must be in studio coursework and 12 in liberal arts seminars.

Mount Royal School of Art

The Mount Royal School of Art M.F.A. is a multidisciplinary program that supports artists in developing an intensive, critical, and culturally astute studio practice by supporting individual studio-based research that may engage deep exploration within a specific medium or discourse, or that might embrace a wide array of disciplines and media.

Painting

The Painting Department celebrates the development of strong painting and drawing skills, an exploration of representational and abstract forms in 2D, 3D, and 4D, and an appreciation of independent, personal expression and risk taking. Students engage with both traditional painting conventions and more contemporary methods and forms.

PAINTING

PAINTING & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Photography

Recognizing the photograph as an important tool in contemporary art, MICA's Photography Department cultivates informed and engaged practitioners. Majors are exposed to the full range of photographic practice, from black & white darkroom processes and archival inkjet printing to nontraditional processes and industry-standard studio lighting.

PHOTOGRAPHY & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Photography + Media & Society

Photography + Media & Society (P+M&S) is a Master of Fine Arts program where mature, self-motivated candidates explore photography and media as an interdisciplinary medium informed by the liberal and visual arts and the record of the human story. P+M&S offers an active think tank for socially engaged thought-leaders to produce knowledge and meaning in the public sphere using lens and data-based photographic, imaging, and media tools.

Printmaking

The Printmaking Department offers a broad range of studio experiences in the four major printmaking disciplines: relief, intaglio, lithography, and screenprinting. The fine-arts-based approach allows each student to realize a personal vision, culminating in a yearlong senior thesis.

PRINTMAKING & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

Product Design

MICA's Product Design major is rooted in the awareness that predominant design paradigms and methodologies need to be fundamentally transformed. Critical inquiry guides a highly collaborative, cross-disciplinary curriculum emphasizing craft processes, materials, tools, and principles of social and environmental sustainability. (This major transitioned to minor-only status during the 2024-25 academic year.).

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Rinehart School of Sculpture

The oldest program of its kind in the country, the Rinehart School of Sculpture M.F.A. supports 21st-century artists in developing sustainable, creative, and ethical artistic practices and envisioning new possibilities for sculpture. The Rinehart program features individually assigned studios that open onto a shared production space, affording easy access to production facilities and informal peer interaction.

Social Design

MICA's Master of Arts in Social Design is a one-year, mission-focused graduate program that prepares students to lead change, advance equity, and reimagine systems for a more just world. The first degree-bearing program of its kind, the M.A. in Social Design (MASD) is a practice-based graduate program that prepares changemakers with the tools and methods to engage ethically with people and partners to advance equity and social justice.

Studio and Humanistic Studies

This four-year program combines a B.F.A. in a studio discipline with a liberal arts major in Humanistic Studies, fully integrating in-depth coursework in academics and studio. The heart of the curriculum is a sequence of interdisciplinary seminars that engages students in intensive discourse on what it means to be human.

Studio Art

The M.F.A. in Studio Art (low residency) is designed for students to complete their graduate studies over three years plus one summer. Each year, students come to MICA for an intensive six-week summer residency combined with independent work during the academic year and a return to campus for a short winter session.

Teaching

MICA's M.A. in Teaching (MAT) program focuses on teaching as an art in itself, enhanced when the educators are accomplished, practicing artists. The four-semester residency consists of 53-62 credits of graduate education and liberal arts courses, internships and student teaching, and independent studio work; the program is a Maryland State Approved Program for art teacher certification in grades preK-12.

USER DESIGN EXPERIENCE (UX DESIGN)

UX DESIGN

UX Design (Online)

Focusing on the intersection between art and technology, students in the M.P.S. in UX Design study fundamental principles of interface design, project management, prototyping, and usability as applied to industries from gaming to healthcare and education to defense. Completed in just 15 months, the online, cohort-based program allows students to earn their degree while working full time.