Art Degrees Online

Program Description

The Photography program ensures that students produce technically and aesthetically sound work. Under the guidance of a faculty of working professionals in the field of photography, students fine tune their style, both in terms of content and approach. Before choosing a concentration, students develop the technical, critical and practical skills that are required in the challenging and diverse photography profession. Coupling advanced technical skills alongside design and concept knowledge, students develop a cohesive portfolio of personal signature images that demonstrate strength in image making.

Required Courses

Click on the link below to see degree requirements. Each course listed carries 3 semester units of credit, unless otherwise noted.

Degree Requirements

Students who already have a bachelor’s degree can enroll in our streamlined Second Degree Program that is 66 units without requiring any Liberal Arts or Art electives.

Course Schedule

The Academy of Art University makes its best effort to post an accurate projected schedule; however, due to unforeseen circumstances, the course schedule may change. Please check the schedule link below:

Interdisciplinary Art & Design Studies (IADS) provides students with an opportunity to explore and obtain an expansive vocabulary within multiple disciplines. Its focus is interdisciplinary with a choice of concentration within one discipline. Areas of program concentration unique to IADS are Advertising Design, Fashion Design at Parsons Paris, Museum Gallery Studies, and Teaching Artist.

What differentiates this program from a major field of concentration such as a major in graphic design or photography is a shift in focus from discipline specific to overall breadth and interdisciplinary experience. Consequently, students will be exposed to a greater variety and range of disciplines taking fewer courses in any one area of concentration. Students will not identify their area of concentration until the end of their sophomore year. Students will be required to take core concentration courses throughout their junior and senior years.

In the second year, upon completion of the first year foundation program, students will be required to take the introductory course work prescribed within the major disciplines of Fine Arts, Photography, Graphic Design, and Illustration. This interdisciplinary experience will provide students with the necessary background to identify an area of concentration for further study in their junior and senior year.

In the junior year students will be immersed in their chosen area of concentration through multiple studio courses, an internship, and an introduction to professional practices. During the senior year students will continue to work within their given concentration as they develop their senior thesis project and professional portfolio.

This new program recognizes the changing forces within the art and design community. Today, more and more creative fields have become interdisciplinary. Artists and designers are called upon to address new challenges outside their area of expertise, traversing new horizons and learning new vocabularies. This program will provide students with a greater range of knowledge and the ability to navigate comfortably between the art and design disciplines of tomorrow.

The studio art concentration consists of at least 13 semester courses, including:

Arth 101 and Arth 102 or their equivalents (ARTH 201 and ARTH 202) or Arth 111 Arts of the Western Tradition, or Arth 198 Arts of Africa, Asia and the Americas, or their equivalents (ARTH 298) which must be taken before the senior year.

Three semester courses in studio art foundations:
Arts 111 Two-Dimensional Design
Arts 112 Three-Dimensional Design
and Arts 116 Drawing I
These foundation courses must be taken before the senior year.

One semester of Arts 402.

One additional semester course in Art and Art History.

And six additional semester courses in studio art from the following areas (with a possible emphasis in the student’s major interest): drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and graphic design. Studio concentrators are urged to take Arth 318. Arts 399 is normally reserved for fall semester seniors.

For permission to enter the studio concentration, students must submit a portfolio of their work to the department during their sophomore year. Faculty review portfolio submissions once during the fall and once during the spring semester. All students who wish to be studio majors must be approved and accepted by the end of their sophomore year. Please see the chair of the department for more information.

The Simon’s Rock program in Photography considers technical knowledge, historical background, and critical and analytical skills to be key elements in the education of each photo student. Our curriculum is designed to foster a disciplined approach to independent, self-generated work in each course, whether it be the core studio or a Senior Thesis project. We provide a comprehensive facility with professional equipment, as well as exposure to working artists, historians, writers, and critics, to support the growth and development of each student photographer. We feel that photography by its very nature is a tool which promotes interdisciplinary study. Our program offers a wide range of courses that allow the exploration of the medium of photography by students with interests in the arts and humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences.

Students interested in this concentration should take the core course, Photography, in the first year. It provides each student with an introduction to basic camera and darkroom skills, a background in the history of photography, and a thorough exploration of image making. We recommend that Lower College students in this concentration also take two semesters of basic art history and at least one design module or course.
Curriculum
Three intermediate courses in Photography are required for the concentration. Students are introduced to a variety of photographic approaches and technical skills through courses such as the Writing and Photography Studio and Experiments in Photography and other intermediate visual arts courses that use photo media such as Intermedia Studio, Designing with Computers, Intaglio Printmaking and Silk Screen Printmaking. Either History of Photography, Theories of Photography, or Critical Issues in Contemporary Photography is required, and it is recommended that students in the concentration take two of these courses. Advanced courses include Color Photography Studio, Documentary Photography, Photographic Portrait/Self- Portrait, and the Artists’ Books Studio. Students are required to take at least three of these. The total minimum credits required to complete the Photography concentration is 24.