• Transdisciplinary Design

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    [email protected] 
    212.229.5150 (U.S. only)

    Program Contacts
    John Bruce, Co-director
    Eduardo Staszowski, Co-director

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  • The Master in Fine Arts program, based at our New York City campus, welcomes practitioners from diverse backgrounds and career stages to reflect on and expand their practice. Rooted in a transdisciplinary approach, the MFA program fosters engagement across disciplines, supporting students in articulating the contributions of their work and exploring future possibilities within their evolving fields.

    Operating at the intersection of theoretical and aesthetic experimentation, the curricula encourages students to develop capacities in convening, imagining, translating, and representing. The program and community create a collaborative space where diverse practices coexist, inform one another, and extend beyond the limits of any single medium, format, scale, or methodology.

    Program Highlights

    • Transdisciplinary

      Rooted in the Latin word trans, meaning "across and beyond," the program emphasizes transdisciplinarity and the integration of thinking and action. It invites you to navigate and connect across diverse fields and spaces, breaking down disciplinary boundaries and embracing varied perspectives, methodologies, and practices.

    • Expanding Practices and Careers

      Prepare to expand your practice and develop your career across diverse fields. Use your work to embody complex ideas, generate new knowledge, and shift consciousness around pressing societal challenges, while fostering meaningful engagement, provoking dialogue, and inspiring collective action.

    • Applicant Profile

      Although the degree is an MFA and includes "design" in its name, this program is not a traditional fine arts or design course of study. No prior art or design experience is required. We welcome applicants from diverse fields, including humanities, arts, social work, activism, politics, media, and public policy. 

    • External Guests

      Learn from prominent creative practitioners, scholars, activists, and industry and government leaders who contribute to the program's rich, dynamic learning environment.

    • Collaborative Ethos

      Develop relationships and collaborations through processes of worlding, being, and becoming together. Moving beyond outdated, intrusive, exploitative, and transactional client relationships, you learn to foster solidarity, decentralize authorship, and challenge privilege.

    • Opportunities for Research and Teaching

      Engage with initiatives through The New School' Consortium for Transdisciplinarity  and other centers, institutes, and labs across the university.

    • Degree Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
    • Format Full-time, on campus
    • Credits 60
    • Duration 2 years
    • Other program status STEM-designated

  • Curriculum

    Composed of interconnected seminar and collaborative studio courses, the curriculum fosters creative learning through making and action that build capacities including convening, facilitating, visualizing, analyzing, synthesizing, translating, and proposing. Studios feature an evolving array of thematic areas of inquiry aimed at building relationships and responses that enable social progress. They function as collectives of students, faculty, and external collaborators in which the line between expert, researcher, and participant often blurs. Work engages with speculative narratives and material explorations. 

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  • Career Paths

    Graduates pursue a variety of careers, including design consulting; post-secondary teaching and research, organizational development; international development; service design; in-house design leads within government organizations and other industries; and other roles related to transformational strategy. Recent graduates have presented at international conferences, opened consultancies, and taken leadership positions within community innovation labs.

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  • Student Work

      See Our Work

    • Parsons faculty represent a broad range of expertise and are acknowledged as leading practitioners and scholars in their fields.

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      Undergraduates

      To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

      Undergraduate Adult Learners

      To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

      Graduates

      To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.