Bachelor of Fine Arts - Digital Arts and Design

Program Description 

Students wishing to pursue studies in the digital arts & design have numerous options for career paths available to them. The 120-credit Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Arts & Design program is geared to prepare students for successful careers in design, whether that be in print, web, or multimedia. The first and foremost responsibility of the program is to pass on the knowledge, as well as nurture the technical and creative skills, that are required for graduates to secure jobs as designers. Courses cover a range of areas including desktop publishing, vector-based illustration, digital imaging, web design, and interactive multimedia, as well as 3D animation and desktop video. Students begin by learning the fundamentals of art history, drawing and illustration and then apply these long-established principles to the evolving world of graphic design. With an established plan of study that allows students to explore a range of design software and media, students are also introduced to the different paths they can pursue within the design field. Some students go into advertising, others to interactive web design or publishing. As students move through the program they begin to develop interests that determine which area of design they will pursue. The program includes a mandatory internship course that requires students to complete a graphic design internship before they graduate. This internship program helps to demystify the work experience and gives students an understanding of what it is like to actually work in an art department. Students in the B.F.A. in Digital Arts and Design Program have interned and gone on to work at such companies as SONY, NBC, Esquire Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Time Warner, and Hearst Publications. In their senior year, students are required to create both traditional and interactive portfolios of their work, as well as participate in a Senior Thesis Exhibition.

Class sizes are small and students get to work in a fully networked, state of the art computer lab which is equipped with over eighty Macintosh workstations, large format color printers, and scanners. The faculty is comprised of working professionals who practice what they preach in the classroom and continue to work outside of class as print and web designers, multimedia artists, and authors.