Art Degrees Online

Program Description

The photography program at ASU has earned an international reputation for the quality of its instruction and the broad range of course work offered. Students study the medium of photography as a means toward the creation of art and toward visual literacy. This involves the acquisition of technical skills, the development of a sound theoretical base and an immersion in photography’s history. Course work encompasses critiques of creative work, beginning and advanced criticism and theory, practice in gallery management as well as practice in black and white, color, digital, large format, portraiture and 19th-century processes.

Additional Program Fee: No

Second Language Requirement: No
Career Opportunities

A degree in the arts offers students a pathway to a rich and varied choice of careers. The B.F.A. is essential for advanced study leading to the terminal M.F.A. This advanced degree offers opportunities in university teaching, in history or studio areas, curatorial work in galleries, museums and historical collections and nonprofit arts organization management.

Admission Requirements

Students will be admitted to ASU as art exploratory majors. They must complete a series of requirements including successfully passing a portfolio review in order to be eligible for upper-division course work in the major.

Freshmen students applying to the Herberger College School of Art enter ASU as pre-art majors in the School of Art. There is no portfolio review process at the time of admission to ASU for freshmen.

Typically students in their second year interested in studio art and art education will submit a portfolio for review once they have completed their core requirements and are completing the last of the 12 hours of 200-level art requirements; or if they are interested in art history or museum studies, they will submit a declaration form in the semester in which they complete 30 hours.

Transfer students who have completed the foundational core and pre-art requirements may submit a portfolio for review before they have been admitted to ASU. To complete an undergraduate degree in four years, it is recommended that community college transfer students, who are completing a two year degree and have completed the foundational core and pre-art requirements apply and submit a portfolio in the semester they are completing their community college degree or the semester before they plan to enter Arizona State University.

Direct transfer of courses from other accredited institutions to the Katherine K. Herberger College of the Arts are subject to:
the existence of parallel and equal courses in the college’s curriculum, and
departmental or school evaluation of studio courses with respect to performance standards.

Every candidate for the bachelor’s degree must earn a minimum of 30 semester hours in resident credit at ASU. Transfer students enrolled in the college must complete a minimum of 15 semester hours of resident credit in the major as approved by the faculty.

The Photography Department at Edinburgh College of Art has a strong international reputation, with students achieving at the very highest level. Recent major awards won by students include the John Kobal Prize, The Jerwood Prize, Fuji Student Photographer of the Year, the Audi Award for Contemporary Photography and the ICI/Olmec Student Digital Photographer of the Year.

The MA and MFA programmes provide graduates of photography, or graduates from another discipline with some demonstrable skill in photography, to use the medium to examine and explore a theme of their own choosing and to produce a resolved body of practical work allied to rigorous research and professional practice.

At Edinburgh College of Art, photography is viewed as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. It is a path to self-expression through the production of considered and resolved work. The range of practice within the Department is as wide as we can make it and includes advanced level documentary, landscape, portraiture, constructed imagery, installation and video.

These programmes are primarily designed as a means of developing and extending creative practice and are intellectually and critically underpinned by theoretical study. Students who wish to concentrate on theory will find the programmes offered by the Centre for Visual & Cultural Studies more appropriate; Contemporary Art Theory, Visual Culture and Visual and Material Culture.

Fine art principles and practices are the essential forces guiding the mission of the Program in Experimental Animation—a course of study designed for independent and adventurous artists who are interested in personal expression and who regard animation as a highly dynamic, ever-evolving art form. This program offers a framework in which students explore, develop and refine intellectually demanding, aesthetically progressive concepts and professional practices in their personal cinematic artmaking.

The curriculum begins by building a foundation understanding of a variety of animation techniques and concepts. Courses in 2-D drawn and direct animation, stop-motion, and 2-D and 3-D computer animation blend practical knowledge with creative stimulation, while animation history courses provide a detailed examination of all forms of animation art—with a special emphasis on the history of experimental forms. Once foundation studies are completed, students work closely with their mentors and other members of the program’s accomplished faculty as they experiment with and extend their own unique artistic visions. At the advanced levels of the curriculum, students chart a more individualized course of study in consultation with their mentors, who help to custom-tailor coursework according to each student’s particular interests.

The Program in Experimental Animation enjoys a long-standing international reputation for excellence in innovative animation production. Its faculty, students and alumni have consistently won top awards at film festivals in the United States, Europe and Asia, and are widely credited with helping to define the art of animation as we know it today.