I’m thinking about getting my MFA in Design Thinking, which is basically problem solving and art direction/art management. I majored in Mass Communication and Visual arts during my undergrad so I have a steong art background. The programs website it says that I’ll be able to teach at college level because the degree is considered a terminal degee.
IF I decide to teach at college level am I only certified to teach Design Thinking? Will I be able to teach studio arts?
On my resume, can I leave out my MFA focus and just list it as “MFA”
Also, I’m able to provide my visual arts portfolio for review, I maintained a studio arts portfolio throughout my undergrad career.
Do you really think that someone that is hiring for a teaching position isn’t going to want to know your focus? The answer to your question really depends upon the caliber of the school.
An MFA is considered a terminal degree in the arts, and so technically, you can teach at the college level with it. The reality is a lot more complicated.
First of all, academia is a super competitive field with way more supply than demand. This is especially true in the arts. You have to have a very accomplished resume and body of work to be considered for positions at most good colleges and universities - even small, tuition-dependent colleges and regional public universities have a wealth of choices due to how tight the market is. Take a look at the backgrounds of professors in departments at schools you’d want to teach, and make note of where they got their MFA from. Is your prospective MFA program in the same caliber/tier as theirs?
Second of all, usually the requirement in the U.S. is that in order to teach something, you have to have 18 graduate credits in the area. That’s how schools stay accredited. If the MFA in design thinking has studio art classes, then technically you could probably get an MFA in design thinking and teach studio art. But again, because the market is so competitive, schools (and search committees) have their pick of the candidates. If you’re competing with candidates who have MFAs in studio art, you may be at a disadvantage unless the department is specifically looking for someone to teach or do work in the design thinking space. A lot of it will also depend on the kind of output you produce: if your portfolio or body of work (less familiar with the art academic space) shows strengths in studio art, and your graduate education shows lots of development in that area, you could be eligible.
This is a case in which I would ask the MFA program to provide you with a list or some examples of students who have graduated in the last 5-10 years who have ended up in academia. Where do they teach, and what do they teach? Your department’s placement rate will tell you a lot more about your potential than anything else. Pay close attention to the ratio/percentage of people who have gotten academic jobs vs. other kinds of roles you don’t want, and pay attention to whether the jobs are permanent and full-time (like tenure-track academic positions, or at least full-time permanent lectureships and other types of roles) vs. contingent (e.g., adjuncts).
No. That won’t do anything for you. Any academic search committee looking for a new professor is probably going to ask you for your graduate transcript anyway, and you’ll have to talk about your background in the statements you write for the job as well as your interviews. And if you apply to non-academic jobs, people are at BEST going to ask you what it was anyway, and at worst are going to pass over your application because of the lack of field. I mean, you can get an MFA in lots of things - visual and studio arts; music performance and theory fields; dance; writing; etc. If someone applied to a role under me and just put that they had a “PhD,” unless they had a truly fantastic application otherwise I’d just move on to the next applicant.