Hello all,
My daughter is artistic and it has been assumed by most that she would pursue a degree in fine arts with a career in drawing or some other art related field. After a recent discussion, I have learned that she would like to consider becoming an art teacher but may want to study psychology as well and may want to be a psychologist. Does anyone have any ideas of what colleges have a fine reputation in drawing but might also be able to offer her a solid foundation in psychology should she choose to head in that direction? She will be a Junior this coming schoolyear. Thank you in advance for your input.
The field is pretty large for those requirements - she could choose either a large university with an arts college or a liberal arts college with a strong arts program. You might want to narrow things down a bit. BFAs are hard to combine with academic degrees so is she willing to do a BA or does she want a BFA for sure? How academically competitive is she? location? size? Off the top of my head a school like Skidmore or Bard comes to mind but your daughter might be more interested in a university like UCLA or Temple. All of those have respected programs fine arts and would offer the oppotunity to get a good solid foundation in psychology. So maybe give a little more detail on what she wants in a school. I would personally steer clear of pure “arts” schools if she thinks she might want to double major in an academic discipline.
Her choice of college could depend on the relative emphasis she would like to place on drawing versus psychology and general academics. Schools such as Alfred and SUNY-Purchase tend to be visual/performing arts oriented, but also offer psychology and other general liberal arts. Depending on the range of her interests, as well as her degree of academic preparation, she might also consider colleges such as Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Bard, Skidmore, Wheaton (MA), Smith, Scripps, Kenyon and Hamilton.
Tufts has a museum affiliated fine arts school
https://smfa.tufts.edu/
a child study program with its own school as a laboratory
http://ase.tufts.edu/epcshd/
a psychology program with several options including clinical psych
https://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/undergraduate/
a co-major or minor in education
https://ase.tufts.edu/education/undergraduate/
and a five year accelerated masters program in art education or museum education
https://ase.tufts.edu/education/programs/combinedDegree/
https://ase.tufts.edu/education/programs/artEducation/
https://ase.tufts.edu/education/programs/museumEducation/
Good Luck!
A couple of things would be helpful to be more helpful in responses: how much of a factor will financial assistance be? what generally are her stats, will she be looking toward the most elite schools or ones that are generally more accessible in terms of admissions (and many outstanding schools are not extremely competitive in admissions)? any geographic preferences–Northeast, South, etc.? any preference among urban v. suburban v. college town? LAC, medium-sized, or large flagship-type university?
You might be looking for something like the dual program at Brown/RISD, which is of course amazing and very competitive (I believe students still need to be accepted into both schools, independently).
But I’m going to throw out a sleeper (for non-VA residents). Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in downtown Richmond, VA (RVA). It’s an urban campus, which might not appeal (had a friend’s kid who almost did not get out of car on first visit, ended up there, and has had an amazing experience). Richmond is a very “hot” city and now very popular with students (VCU/University of Richmond) and young professionals. It has a beautiful parks system, featuring the James River.
It has one of the top art schools and a medical school, so perhaps some research/intern opportunities there. Another friend’s kid (I’m in VA) won the top art student award at our public high school, which has well over 2000 students. She’s an art student at VCU and loving it. I can’t speak to psychology department directly. And I’m not sure about double majoring in art and psychology since they are in different schools. You could research that.
https://arts.vcu.edu/programs/undergraduate/
USNWR ranks Yale #1 and UCLA and VCU tied #2 for Best Fine Arts Schools. Some others on the list: RISD, MICA, Wash U, Bard, UCSD, Wisconsin-Madison, Stanford, Temple, etc.
Good luck!
THank you all for your responses. I suppose I should have been more specific, but despite my attempt at trying to keep it simple, I think I need to explain a little. My daughter was flagged as a talent in middle school for her drawing. The high school art department was looking forward to getting her and she could not wait to get up there to take advantage of the wonderful art program we have at our high school. Unfortunately she became ill in 8th grade and was eventually diagnosed with post viral chronic fatigue. She had been a competitive gymnast training 12-16 hours a week but since her illness over a year and a half ago she has struggled just to get to school a couple of days a week. Her art stopped and has now begun to pick up though not with the same ability to focus for hours union hours at a time. Her illness requires careful pacing and she deals with massive brain fog. Despite this, and the fact that she missed over 85 days of school last year for 10th grade, she made honor roll three out of the four quarters and we are hoping to add AP art again this year (she had to drop it last year). We are trying to decide whether or not she should push through one or two AP classes in other subjects or stick with Regents level classes. This has all been a massive adjustment.
She has expressed an interest in becoming an art teacher and her retired former art teacher has agreed to mentor her and get her portfolio ready. But recently she expressed an interest in psychology too. Either would be a wonderful fit for her if she can continue to become a little stronger and get through her education.
She LOVED San Francisco when we visited and it’s art vibe. I could see her going to school there though I would worry tremendously. I could see her in Manhattan as well. I am not sure what type of environment best suits her and I’m not sure if she knows either. She is very liberal minded and likes people who are sensitive thinkers, drawn to mature girls who do no have a flair for the dramatic like some of my friends’ daughter’s have in their friend groups.
My son will be entering UNC chapel Hill in September as a double major in music and public policy. My daughter has not been there yet so I can’t say if she likes the environment there, but she will be with us for orientation in August so we shall see. Any guidance based on all of this additional info would be so wonderful…
I also have a daughter who everyone assumed would be an artist. Until the end of junior year of high school when she told us she wanted to be an engineer. She was clear that she didn’t want art to be work. We were pretty surprised but she had the academics to support her choice, and honestly, it wasn’t until she been in college for a year that we could see the engineer side of her clearly enough to understand the decision. It makes perfect sense now!
She is just completing her engineering degree, at a school with lots of engineering majors but no pure art at all. Her major required one architecture course and she did very well in that. . She does a fair amount of drawing and painting on the side when she has time, for herself and to share with others. She also had a membership to the Art Institute of Chicago and visited often over the last four years.
Your daughter has tons of options for pursuing either art or her other academic interests or both. As others have said, begin thinking about what other things she wants in a school and your own budget to narrow things down. what she wants to study will likely become clearer over the next year, and if she’s still very undecided at that time, that will also narrow things down.
Has she considered art therapy? I’m not sure that’s an under grad major (I’ve heard that Georgetown had a great masters program in Art therapy). But that could be a way to combine the two interests. GTs program requires prerequisite work in both studio art and psychology.
Yes, all that info is helpful. I hope your daughter continues her recovery.
Maybe you can swing into Richmond coming or going to UNC. I-95 goes right by downtown. At the very least, you could get lunch in the Fan. Check out the video VCU Arts chose to put on its homepage–much more SF in a street art sort of way than you might be expecting to see in the Old Confederacy. Richmond has really become a much more progressive city. Some of the Old South lingers, but really a new place today.
And maybe check out that full list of Best Fine Arts Schools in #4. Some others have mentioned some of the same schools, so maybe they are some good places to start.
Smith was recommended. That seems like a cool choice, at least to me. Northampton is a very funky, artsy, liberal town. Obviously not huge, but not tiny, and vibrant. Smith has great academics. It’s part of the Five College Consortium, and students can take some classes and take advantage of other opportunities at the other member schools (Mount Holyoke, Hampshire, Amherst, and U Mass Amherst). Depending where you are in NY, it might make a nice weekend trip, wrapping in the Berkshires (say Stockbridge and Lenox), which are just about an hour away from Northampton.
It sounds like Bard might be a great NY option.
Art therapy sounds like a great idea.
U of SF is actually a good place to combine fine arts and education. Teacher preparation is specifically designed as a dual degree program. I have a young friend who is combining this with music and loves the program. If your daughter loves art museums, there’s also an Arts Management program that collaborates extensively with the museums, galleries, and nonprofits in the city. And of course there’s a psych major available as well. The nice thing about a midsized school like this is that the disciplinary “silos” aren’t so separate, and it’s relatively easy to explore a bit before settling on a path. (The music education major was not my friend’s original plan, at all.) They give decent merit aid too. The only tough part IMHO is that it’s easy to fall in love with a city that will be hard to afford once you graduate.
Of course a lot depends on your daughter’s health, which of course dovetails with financial concerns, because an in-state school would probably be more amenable to a lighter-load, extended-time plan if that was what she needed. I hope things continue to improve for her; at least you have some time to consider what is going to work. Getting accepted to a school she loves and then deferring for a gap year to prepare might not be a terrible idea either; she could continue to study art and build her portfolio outside of a college credit framework while regrouping a bit after the demands of high school before taking on the demands of college.
CUNY Hunter could be a good in-state option
They have a studio art
https://huntercollegeart.org/studio-art/undergraduate-art/
several different psychology tracks
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/psychology/undergraduate-studies/psychology-major/copy_of_the-undergraduate-program
and a school of education with an undergrad teaching pathways program
https://education.hunter.cuny.edu/admissions/aspiring-teachers/
and masters in visual arts education
http://catalog.hunter.cuny.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=29&poid=5827
Another wild card–hey, you never know–and you will be heading down to NC often, so maybe you could go all in.
How about UNC-Asheville? It’s a public LAC, not another large state university, like, for example, USF and UCF in Florida. Asheville is an incredibly beautiful regional town right in the Great Smoky Mountains. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs right by town. It’s a center for folk art and art in general. There are lots of fantastic restaurants, shops, etc. Asheville, along with Northampton, Flagstaff and Burlington, VT, are my favorite funky, outdoorsy, artsy towns. It is very much a liberal, free-spirited enclave. The campus is maybe 2 miles from the downtown square, which is the center of everything. I don’t know about the psychology department but the art department is a strength at the school.
Thomas Wolfe’s “Look Homeward Angel” is a brilliant novel that is a thinly fictionalized version of the author’s childhood in Asheville. One of my favorite books.
I’ll throw College of Charleston out because D18 is headed there for studio art this fall. It’s a LAC in the middle of the city, has an art museum on campus to showcase student work, and majors in arts mgmt, art in computing, psych, etc. Their art majors are drawing, photography, painting or sculpture. D’s talent is also drawing with an interest in photography.
At orientation, D was told that it is very easy to double major or have 2 minors. She is taking gen ed courses the first semester so that she has some time to think about which second major to pursue.
TTG, we have a family friend who lives in Chapel Hill and told us that Asheville was very artsy and a really great town. She said she loves it there. It sounds like we will have to make sure to visit now that two people within a two month period have Spoken so highly of it. It would be funny to have two siblings fro New York attending 2 different UNC campuses!
Thank you for the information re: Charleston, Drewsmom. It had not been on my radar but it sounds like it could be a nice fit for my daughter. I will do some research! I hope your daughter really likes going to school there 
Mastodon, we will have to look at Hunter too: it is a great local option especially since we do not know what her health stTus will be by the time she is ready to attend college.
Aguapt, u of SF would be a dream, for sure. I would consider getting an apartment in California to be close by if she needed me. I want her to be able to have the chance to explore too. My son applied to a few University of California schools and got in. Had he gotten any money he would have gone to California in a second and now says if he goes to law school, he will be looking to do so in California for sure. I think the only way my daughter would be able to look at California schools would be if she had family close enough in case she needed additional support from time to time. Who knows, maybe the whole family will end up there eventually!
In the meantime, I will look at liberal arts colleges that have strong programs in Art, especially drawing instead of strictly art schools as we had planned. I think this might give her the flexibility to explore without being restricted.
If you visit Asheville, and like Asian food, try Red Ginger Dimsum and Tapas. I’m almost positive it’s the place we loved so much. My oldest has studied and worked a lot in China, is fluent in Mandarin, and is getting ready to head back to China to live and work. They thought it was the best Chinese restaurant they had been to in the US. Somewhat Americanized but very much Chinese at heart, and in the preparation of food. But I’ve eaten at more than a half dozen restaurants around the town square and all have been excellent It’s a great town for foodies.
Thank you for the suggestion: my daughter is definitely a foodie! We will have to give it a try.