Parsons School of Design

Discover a university dedicated to unleashing your creativity.

Parsons School of Design, a globally top-ranked art and design school, has offered students innovative approaches to education since its founding in 1896. Today we’re the only American art and design school within a comprehensive university—The New School—which also houses a rigorous liberal arts college, a progressive performing arts school, a legendary graduate school, and other programs. Here you can master established art and design fields or advance emerging ones and study across all university disciplines. Guided by Parsons’ faculty, students draw on the university’s extensive resources to challenge convention and innovate, improving people’s lives directly and preparing for an evolving world as a collective force of new creative thought and action.

undergraduate programs

Parsons Sch�l of Design

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THIS IS YOUR MOMENT TO DISCOVER HOW CREATIVITY CHANGES

VERYTHING

Discover a university dedicated to unleashing your creativity.

Parsons School of Design, a globally top-ranked art and design school, has offered students innovative approaches to education since its founding in 1896. Today we’re the only American art and design school within a comprehensive university—The New School—which also houses a rigorous liberal arts college, a progressive performing arts school, a legendary graduate school, and other programs. Here you can master established art and design fields or advance emerging ones and study across all university disciplines. Guided by Parsons’ faculty, students draw on the university’s extensive resources to challenge convention and innovate, improving people’s lives directly and preparing for an evolving world as a collective force of new creative thought and action.

EVE

ERYTHING

Parsons students used weather balloons outfitted with digital cameras to map Union Square and other Manhattan green spaces to study change in urban ecosystems over time.

YOUR STUDIO

For Empowerhouse, students across the university partnered with local civic and government agencies to demonstrate how design and policy can improve social and environmental conditions on scales ranging from a single home to a national organization’s system of building. The project resulted in a two-family house built with Habitat for Humanity and changes in Habitat’s construction policies to allow for more energy-efficient and affordable dwellings.

A recent course challenged students to design a garment leaving no scrap fabric. An anorak created for the class was put into production and sold by eco-fashion retailer Loomstate, the external partner for the project.

SUSTAINABILITY

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Can a School Change the Way You Think About Art and Design?

From the moment you arrive at Parsons, you sense that in the right hands, art and design can be more powerful than you ever imagined. They have the capacity to disrupt the status quo. They can be employed to confront climate change, address race relations, and transform industry through thoughtfully conceived objects and ideas. Here becoming an artist or designer means working across disciplines, learning to collaborate, and questioning every assumption in order to create more reflectively and responsibly.

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OPPOSITE: Professor John Jerard recently

ABOVE: Students and faculty of

led an interdisciplinary class in which students designed and built sets, props, costumes, and posters for productions staged by The Mannes Opera, part of The New School’s Mannes School of Music.

Parsons’ DESIS Lab, the U.S. branch of an international social innovation incubator, interviewed Brooklyn residents with the aim of developing environmentally sustainable alternatives to cars.

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Can the Walls Between Classrooms and New York City Disappear?

NYC offers endless creative inspiration and opportunity. And at Parsons, it’s a vital shared workspace. From the first semester, courses take you out into the city to design creative ways to improve urban life. In internships and collaborations with nonprofits, government, and commercial partners, you test ideas and develop skills and networks that support you during your time on campus and beyond.

TOP: First-year students visit Flavor

BOTTOM: Your education at Parsons

Paper, a small Brooklyn producer of handcrafted wallpaper, and develop their color theory abilities on-site.

involves exploring ways in which green spaces like Manhattan’s High Line park (shown here) make cities more livable, resilient, and inclusive.

Here art and design are means of engaging with communities and with urbanizing settings.

For the Experimental Typography course, students placed 3D letterforms throughout the city, giving subway riders an opportunity to reflect on public art and students a chance to witness the effects of changing scale and setting in communication design.

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Experienced in a range of media and teaching methods, Parsons instructors can help you express your ideas effectively and explore new techniques.

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Build a Learning Community of Faculty and Peers At The New School, you’re surrounded by teachers and peers who help you grow as a creator and a member of a community. Our accomplished faculty encourage you to boldly experiment and guide you to become technically proficient, conceptually sophisticated, and reflective about your work. They are also working professionals who share their experience and creative connections. Your fellow students are your collaborators and critics and even become your professional colleagues. They are open-minded, independent, diverse, and aware. And they come from every state in the United States and more than body one of the most international in the country.

Your community lasts long after you graduate. Alumni connect at universitysponsored networking events and reunions. Some students start businesses together after graduating.

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100 countries worldwide, making our university’s student

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ACADEMICS

Make Four Years Last a Lifetime Learning here readies you for a creative life of your own design. For four years, you’re challenged to elevate your creativity with critical thought. You partner with peers throughout the university—performers, media makers, policy analysts—sharpening your collaborative skills. You focus your vision while broadening your abilities. Parsons’ approach to education sets us apart and sets you on your path—with the tools and a creative community to last a lifetime.

Academics

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ACADEMICS Our curriculum spans all art and design disciplines and draws on a range of newer interdisciplinary fields, such as service design, urban design, and sustainability studies. We also offer minors in a variety of disciplines, such as foreign languages, psychology, and management. See page 36 for details.

Majors Offered in New York City Architectural Design (BFA) Communication Design (BFA) Design and Technology (BFA) Fashion Design (BFA) Fine Arts (BFA) Illustration (BFA) Integrated Design (BFA) Photography (BFA) Product Design (BFA) Strategic Design and Management (BBA)

Majors Offered at Parsons Paris (see page 41) Art, Media, and Technology (BFA) Fashion Design (BFA) Strategic Design and Management (BBA) newschool.edu/parsons/academics

Schools Undergraduate and graduate programs at Parsons are grouped into the following schools to facilitate collaboration and resource sharing: School of Art and Design History and Theory (ADHT) School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) School of Fashion (SOF) School of Design Strategies (SDS) School of Constructed Environments (SCE)

The School of Art and Design History and Theory offers an array of seminars and lectures in history, criticism, and writing that focus on visual and material culture. These courses are integral to studio work and help you develop a systematic understanding of the role and function of visual culture, art, and design over time and in various geographical settings.

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Interior Design (BFA)

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ACADEMICS

TOP: A first-year visit to an urban bike-making studio introduces you to ways designers can promote health benefits and awareness of the consequences of fossil fuel use.

BOTTOM: Policymaking at The United Nations directly affects global climate change. In the first-year Sustainable Systems class, you learn how.

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Your First Year Your first year is one of discovery and exploration. Studio courses build a variety of making skills, while seminars expand your ability to reflect critically on art and design and their connections to the wider world. Together they provide a base for your creative practice over the next three years. They also introduce you to systems-based approaches to design, in which you consider a range of factors—sustainability, technological change, user experience, globalization—to create work suited to the rapidly changing world.

The process takes you throughout New York City, where you encounter firsthand the ways creativity fuels urban life.

You apply your new perspectives and critical-thinking and

The first year also allows those entering as undeclared students the opportunity to explore a range of art and design disciplines that help them decide on a major.

First-year studio-and-seminar pairings enable you to explore topics creatively through research combined with making and followed by written reflections on your work. These broadly applicable design processes serve you during your education and later in your creative career.

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communication skills to share your insights.

ACADEMICS STUDENT PROFILE

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Eva Neves BFA Integrated Design/ BA Environmental Studies Senior

“Stories are within each of us; through art and design, we discover ways to build community around them, stepping outside our comfort zone along the way.”

Eva draws on various media to tell com-

Studies program, involved research into

pelling stories interwoven with economics,

food systems, helping her develop skills and

politics, and culture. She often creates

new perspectives. She combined the fields

textiles—a preferred medium—that are

in a self-designed interdisciplinary project,

equally rich tapestries of color, fibers, and

Depending on the Cotton, which examines

narrative (see photo). It’s a natural way of

the cotton industry.

working in Parsons’ Integrated Design

program, where students combine disci-

lation piece explores cotton’s history and its

plines and formats to remarkable effect.

effects on U.S. culture. She created a narra-

Eva’s interests include agriculture and

tive on cotton fabrics printed with historical

writing, so she opted for the BFA/BA dual

scenes linking the Industrial Revolution,

degree, which allows her to explore envi-

slavery, and cotton’s origins while raising

ronmental studies and communications

awareness about present-day working

in depth alongside her studio art.

conditions. As a radio drama plays in the

background, viewers are invited to pin or

A Parsons class in dyeing fabrics with

Anchored by a story quilt, Eva’s instal-

natural materials sparked Eva’s curiosity

stitch their own contributions onto the quilt.

about cotton, a material deeply rooted in

Eva explains, “Stories are within each of us;

American history. Urban Agriculture and

through art and design, we discover ways

Food Activism, a course in the Environmental

to build community around them, stepping outside our comfort zone along the way.”

ACADEMICS

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Architectural design (BFA)

School of Constructed Environments In this pre-professional program, you investigate the history, language, and social practice of architecture within a fine arts context. You create socially engaged, collaboratively made, and globally oriented work.

In internships, courses, and workshops, you build collaborative skills and broaden your design knowledge with peers in related interior, product, urban, and lighting design programs. Visits to architectural firms and manufacturers provide further insight into the world of professional practice. The program offers design-build opportunities within New York City, such as the Street The new school PARSONS

Seats public seating initiative and housing studios with community partners.

Career paths include— architecture, landscape architecture, environmental art, urban design, exhibition design, product/industrial design, interior design

model, BFA AD Studio 5: Transit Hub TOP RIGHT: Manasi Punde, rendering, Descending Pavilion, project for Studio 2 BOTTOM: Angelo Jones,

model, BFA AD Studio 5: Transit Hub

newschool.edu/bfa-ad

TOP LEFT: Naiky Paradis,

ACADEMICS

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Communication Design (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology In this major, you focus on typography and interaction and choose an industry-related area of study such as Advertising, Information Design, Branding, Editorial, Motion Graphics, Type Design, or Web/Mobile Product Design. You learn how to create compelling messages from concept stage to final form and share them. You explore the social and environmental dimensions of communication.

You work directly with peers throughout The New School, including fellow students in programs housed at other schools within the university, and with external partners in hands-on, collaborative courses. Electives on topics like package design, environmental graphics, and design for social engagement—and ones in areas including the humanities, media studies, and business—enhance your learning.

Career paths include— advertising, motion graphics, publication design, package design, branding, information visualization, interaction design,

newschool.edu/bfa-cd

exhibition/retail design, environmental graphics

TOP LEFT: Gabriela Demato, publication, Young Gun Magazine, Issue 01 TOP RIGHT: Huy Luong,

publication, The Memory Cookbook BOTTOM RIGHT: Nika Simovich,

digital interface, Post Nostalgia

ACADEMICS

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design and technology (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology Choose a pathway—Game Design or Creative Technology— and solve design problems by remixing software, hardware, art, and design creatively. Code becomes your second native tongue and expressive means of connecting with others. You develop a sustainable and unique process for researching, experimenting, designing, prototyping, iterating, and producing projects that keeps pace with an evolving industry.

The Game Design pathway in the BFA DT program immerses you in the world of indie game design and development. It gives you tools and pipelines that grow The new school PARSONS

and expand with your skill set and provides you with an understanding of the process from brainstorming to game publication. Creative Technology focuses on bringing art- and human-centric design into programming and engineering, providing a set of tools drawing on physical computing, creative coding, user experience, and fabrication.

Career paths include— game design and development, virtual reality and immersion experience design, motion graphics, advertising, software design, hardware engineering, computational arts

BOTTOM: Or Zubalsky, installation and instrument with electronics, Meeting Table

newschool.edu/bfa-dt

TOP: Jon Murry, virtual reality project, Ready Made Exhibition

student profile

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Jessy Jo Gomez BFA Design and Technology Junior

“Designing games that make working together and fighting injustice fun is my idea of a worthy challenge.”

Jessy Jo first encountered Parsons as a

Arduino technology to create interactive

Parsons Scholar, participating in the

objects and games designed to promote

school’s intensive college preparation and

social good. She also leads coding

art and design program for New York City

workshops at Win to Learn, a company

high schoolers. Jessy Jo’s creativity had

she co-founded offering computer science–

already brought her to an arts high school,

focused STEM classes to middle and

but the Scholars program took her abilities,

high school students. These experiences

ambitions, and cross-disciplinary approach

sparked a recent discovery for Jessy Jo:

further. When it was time to apply to college,

interest in a career combining design and

she chose Parsons for its embrace of young

education. “Designing games that make

creators eager to pioneer new fields.

working together and fighting injustice fun

is my idea of a worthy challenge. Digital

Jessy Jo had been interested in digital

technology, youth rights, and education

design might be my route to becoming a

for years. In high school, she joined Games

teacher.” As a teacher, Jessy Jo says, she

for Change and Global Kids, working on

could design curriculum empowering a

justice-focused digital games. In her degree

new generation to foster social opportunity

program, she’s combined disciplines and

through technology.

interests, employing digital code and

ACADEMICS

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FASHION DESIGN (BFA) School of Fashion

This innovative program has trained five generations of designers who have shaped the global industry. Employing design thinking and creative problem-solving strategies, you develop research and explore form, image, material, and process—guided by social and environmental imperatives—to create innovative, ethical, and responsible fashion for an evolving field.

The design-led curriculum is aimed at developing your working methodology while honing your creative vision through study pathways: Collection, Materiality, Systems and Society, and Fashion Product. Research and ideation encompass 2D, 3D, and 4D processes, balancing artisanal The new school PARSONS

techniques with cutting-edge technology. Coursework pushes you to critically engage with the discipline through research, design, business, cultural curation, image making, and visual identity. Your design philosophy shapes your senior thesis, which is self-proposed and expressed through a collection, systems, materiality, fashion product or media, narrative, or documentary format. Faculty, lecturers, and critics engage with you on creative, intellectual, and practical levels. External partners offer you opportunities to connect with professional practice through collaborative projects and competitions that complement your academic experience.

Offered both in New York City and at Parsons Paris.

Career paths include— fashion design, merchandising, public relations, styling, marketing, fashion curation, costume design

MIDDLE: Moon Kyung Hwang,

menswear, Detective RIGHT: Leonid Batekhin,

womenswear, Numbereleven

newschool.edu/bfa-fd

LEFT: Atsuko Yagi, sketch, menswear

ACADEMICS

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Fine Arts (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology This major exposes you to a range of studio practices, ideas, communities, and global dynamics related to contemporary art. You learn to translate concepts into expression through composition, color, form, space, and time-based media while cultivating a range of technical skills and artistic strategies.

You develop the conceptual and critical awareness needed to establish a professional art practice while learning professional strategies for launching a career in fine arts.

This program guides you to discover your artistic voice, familiarizing you with traditional techniques of painting, drawing, and sculpture as well as more innovative interdisciplinary methods that can include public engagement, video, animation, photography, and digital imaging. Internships and electives in topics such as art history, theory, and professional practices broaden your perspective.

Career paths include— fine art, arts administration, curatorial studies/practice, museum/auction house/gallery/art fair management, art

newschool.edu/bfa-fa

history and criticism, education, publishing, art therapy

TOP LEFT: Andrea Sundt, sculpture, Water Compulsion TOP RIGHT: Yu Tada, digital print, Comment Series BOTTOM: Robert Hickerson, photograph, Objekt Permanence

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Illustration (BFA)

School of Art, Media, and Technology Cultivate your vision, authorial voice, creative problemsolving abilities, and curiosity while translating ideas into forms including picture books, comics and graphic novels, animation, hand lettering, editorial and advertising illustrations, toy designs, and surface and display design.

In this major, you create work for mass reproduction and distribution, developing your visual storytelling skills through representational drawing, writing, and painting in three dimensions and across time.

University electives broaden your skills and perspectives.

You apply your learning in projects and internships with partners including Nickelodeon, 350.org, the New York The new school PARSONS

Times, Moleskine, Barnes & Noble, and Brooklyn Industries.

Events like Comic Arts Brooklyn and MoCCA Fest and gatherings of professional organizations build your network.

Career paths include— illustration, comics, animation, graphic novels, publishing, children’s books, toy/product design, pattern/surface design, advertising, motion graphics, fine art, installation design

TOP RIGHT: Paula Searing, storyboard for a toy theater, The Best Time I Have Had in a Long Time BOTTOM RIGHT: Sophia Coco, handmade book,

Love Immortal

newschool.edu/bfa-illustration

LEFT: Anna Outridge, animated short still, Eliot Trix

ACADEMICS

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Integrated design (BFA) School of Design Strategies

Today, as technology and global networks transform the world, designers must be versatile, knowledgeable problem solvers. This program develops these qualities, preparing you to work in social, cultural, and ecological fields. Many graduates combine design and entrepreneurship in innovation-focused businesses.

The flexible curriculum, which provides a creative and intellectual base for integrative work through thematic interdisciplinary studios and labs, facilitates focused study or disciplinary exploration. Learning is anchored in collaborative and entrepreneurial approaches applied in projects with partners including the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, SWALE, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Electives offered at Parsons and throughout The New School broaden your knowledge and interdisciplinary skills.

Career paths include— entrepreneurship, service design, urban design, fashion design, sustainability management, consulting, fine arts,

newschool.edu/bfa-integrated

and career paths related to minors offered at Parsons

LEFT: Daniela Jacobs, jewelry, untitled MIDDLE: Amplify: Creative and Sustainable Lifestyles in the Lower East Side. Amplify addressed sustainability and the everyday needs of older adults in NYC through collaborative support services.

RIGHT: For her LYSIS collection, Integrated Design student Alexis

Walsh fashioned couture garments featuring 3D sculptural elements created with Shapeways software.

student profile

Peter Zweifel BFA Product Design Sophomore

Peter Zweifel came to Parsons to study

a problem-solving system, and that it is

product design after many years in another

as expressive as the field I was already

expressive field—classical dance. Aware

in.” He traveled back to Texas, where he

that a dancer’s career has limits, he began

was a principal dancer with the Texas

looking for a way to combine his creativity

Ballet Theater, with a plan.

and passion for environmentalism for the

next chapter of his life. A trip to New York

sophomore, putting his ideals into action

City to see his sister’s graduation show from

through projects exploring new materials,

Parsons’ BFA Product Design program gave

methods, and settings where design

him some new ideas.

makes sustainability a priority. He’s also

discovered the broad applications of the

Taking in the impressive student

Now Peter is a BFA Product Design

work on view at a major industry venue,

design research process. Working with his

Peter imagined himself on a new creative

sister’s social innovation–focused design

path. Much of the student work reflected

firm, Peter has helped lead workshops

surprising ways of thinking about

demonstrating to major companies how

environmental sustainability, community,

to apply design methods to promote

and the boundaries of design itself. “Until

innovation. “Design is giving me a career in

then, I hadn’t made the connection that

which my values are central to the process.”

product design—all design, really—involves

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“Design is giving me a career in which my values are central to the process.”

ACADEMICS Student Profile

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Katiuscia Gregoire BFA Fashion Sophomore

“What I learned in the first year led me to explore sustainable fashion.”

Raised by family members who designed

to understand how learning about ecology

their own clothes, Katiuscia was at home

and sustainability would take my design

creating colorful fashions at her arts-focused

to the next level.”

Miami high school. For her senior show,

she presented a collection reflecting a

her first-year Sustainable Systems class

love of painting and ability in draping and

and was rewarded with discoveries that

construction. So, arriving at Parsons with a

changed her creative work and daily life.

solid base of art and design skills, Katiuscia

“Surprisingly, my most important learning

expected to dive straight into fashion.

didn’t have to do with a new garment

construction technique or fabric—it was

But she discovered that the first year

But she brought an open mind to

at Parsons is a carefully thought-out path

about sustainability and our food system.

through art and design. In paired studios

What I learned in the first year led me to

and seminars, students explore a variety

explore sustainable fashion.”

of topics, media, and techniques instead of focusing on a single discipline immediately.

The process took some getting used to. “I made art every day in high school. I wanted to get right to work on dress forms in the studio,” says Katiuscia. “It took me a while

ACADEMICS

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INterior design (BFA)

School of Constructed Environments

In 1906, Frank Alvah Parsons established the country’s first interior design curriculum, framing the practice as an intellectually rigorous creative force in everyday life. Today this research-based, design-intensive major prepares you for careers in which you create comfortable, imaginative, and intelligently designed interiors.

You work with faculty, peers, and outside professionals designing interior environments that reflect an understanding of sustainability, cultural differences, and the human need for comfort, safety, and well-being. Courses guide you through the study of materiality and two- and threedimensional form and space. A studio sequence introduces The new school PARSONS

interior design issues of increasing complexity across a wide range of project types, with a focus on design process, lighting, color, and textiles. You develop and analyze your designs—hand drawings, physical models, collage, computer renderings, animations—created using digital and analog methods. An interdisciplinary curriculum, combined with lectures and access to New York City’s premier firms and showrooms, broadens your practice.

Career paths include— interior design, sustainable design, set design, exhibition design, historic preservation, consulting

TOP RIGHT: Hayden Manders and Meredith Woolfolk, rendering, co-housing project for homeless mothers, created for the Design Studio 3 course BOTTOM: Pei Chun Liao, rendering,

Story Corps

newschool.edu/bfa-id

TOP LEFT: Elysia Belilove, rendering, Kin Steps and Co-Work Space

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PHOTOGraphy (BFA) School of Art, Media, and Technology

In this major, you develop the technical, conceptual, aesthetic, and professional skills needed to establish a successful creative practice. You explore analog and digital processes that extend to video/motion production, photo books, and installation art.

The BFA Photography curriculum facilitates the study of photography in relation to social engagement, fashion culture, creative industry, imaging technology, and contemporary art while helping you develop research, critical writing, and technical skills. You focus your interests in electives offered throughout the university and in internships at galleries, publishing houses, and cultural and commercial organizations. Access to state-of-the-art labs, shooting studios, and equipment supports your creativity; student exhibitions and critiques build your network.

Career paths include— commercial, editorial, or fashion photography; visual art; photojournalism; publishing; gallery/studio management;

newschool.edu/bfa-photo

arts production/administration

LEFT: Zeta Gao, fashion editorial, Youthquake RIGHT: Patricia Lopez Ramos,

digital C-print, Food for Thought

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PRODUCT DESIGN (BFA) School of Constructed Environments

In this major, you cultivate the technical and critical skills needed to design objects, systems, and services that enhance human abilities and relationships. You address contemporary realities including sustainability and technological change while exploring materials, manufacturing, aesthetics, and social engagement in both local and global contexts.

Courses help you acquire broadly applicable studio, making, and critical thinking skills including research, graphic representation, sketching, modeling, prototyping, and presentation techniques. Electives—on topics such as digital and physical model making, professional practice and entrepreneurship, The new school PARSONS

material and process innovation, experimental ceramics, and woodworking and metalworking—deepen your practice.

Projects and internships with companies like Poltrona Frau, IKEA, and Areaware connect you to the industry. Museums, archives, and exposure at international design fairs supplement Parsons’ resources, such as the Parsons Making Center and Healthy Materials Lab. Career paths include— industrial design, product development, manufacturing, furniture design, humanitarian/service design, health design, toy design, creative direction

Josi and Stella Lee, Nomad Planters

TOP RIGHT: Gabriella

Ravassa, coffee bean collecting bucket, Coco

BOTTOM RIGHT:

Daniel Martinez, Prism

newschool.edu/bfa-pd

LEFT: Miriam

ACADEMICS

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STRATEGIC Design and management (BBA) School of Design Strategies

Immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial side of design and the design aspects of business. In studios and seminars combining business, design, and liberal arts, you apply interdisciplinary learning through projects and research.

This curriculum integrates innovation and sustainability research, entrepreneurial skill building, quantitative reasoning, financial management, visual communication, and information design. Courses and projects led by practicing professionals enable you to work with entrepreneurs, designers, activists, and academics at organizations like the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, JPMorgan Chase, LVMH, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering. You explore interests and career paths in electives offered throughout The New School; internships give you real-world experience. You graduate prepared to develop design-driven strategies, manage projects and marketing, and assume entrepreneurial and leadership positions.

Offered both in New York City and at Parsons Paris.

Career paths include— management, innovation, entrepreneurship, branding and marketing, design strategy

LEFT: Students create media in a range of platforms to market design-focused goods and services.

newschool.edu/bba-sdm

BOTTOM: L. Curry Aycock, mobile app, The Art of Balance

Student profile

Alex FiCquette BBA Strategic Design and Management Alumnus

If you wonder whether design can bring

synthesizing his insights on untapped

people together—or drive them apart—

opportunities and proposing design-based

ask Alex. While a student in the BBA

approaches to address needs. From his

Strategic Design and Management program,

studies at Parsons Alex knew that

Alex delved into the human factors that

problem-solving techniques based in

effective design takes into consideration

design research are surprisingly adaptable

to make products and services successful.

to a range of settings. But in the course of

His aptitude for listening, reflecting, and

researching user experience for a media

finding creative solutions to problems big

client, he learned just how valuable his own

and small brought him success in intern-

design and management skills had made

ships at Michael Kors, Stella McCartney,

him. Word of his talent at predicting user

Barneys New York, and a Broadway PR

behavior and his success in coordinating

company. He ended up in one of his field’s

the many steps to positive user experience

most coveted positions: design researcher

quickly got around. Soon he was approached

at IDEO, the legendary design and innova-

for a media job, which led to his current

tion consultancy.

position as associate plaza producer for NBC

television’s Today Show. Reflecting

At IDEO, Alex took the human-centered

“what if we…?” approach he learned at

on his providential career shift, he says,

Parsons and applied it to projects for local

“Parsons taught me that observation and

nonprofits and global firms. He interviewed

asking questions are as important as studio

research participants across the country,

skills—they can take you anywhere.”

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“Parsons taught me that observation and asking questions are as important as studio skills—they can take you anywhere.”

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ACADEMICS

Minors A growing array of minors offered at Parsons and throughout The New School advance your study of art and design, broaden your professional skills and perspectives, and give you a competitive edge on job and graduate school applications.

Alternative Fashion Strategies*

Food Studies

Anthropology

French Studies

Art and Design History

Gender Studies

Capitalism Studies

Global Studies

Chinese Studies

Hispanic Studies

Comics and Graphic Narrative Communication

Design*

History Interdisciplinary Science

Contemporary Music

Japanese Studies

Creative Entrepreneurship*

Jewish Culture

Creative Technologies for Performative Practice*

Journalism + Design

Culture and Media

Literature

Dance Data Visualization

Moving Image Arts and Experimental Practices

Design Studies

Museum and Curatorial Studies

Digital Humanities

Music Composition*

Dramatic Arts*

Philosophy

Economics

Photography*

Environmental Studies

Politics

Ethnicity and Race Fashion Communication*

Post-Genre Music: Performance and Creation*

Fashion Studies

Printmaking*

Film Production Fine

Arts*

Literary Translation

Psychology Religious Studies Screenwriting Social Practice Sociology Sustainable Cities Techniques of Music Temporary Environments Theater Visual Studies Writing newschool.edu/academics/minors *Space

limitations in some programs make applications necessary for selected minors. For updated information, visit newschool.edu/ academics/minors.

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BA/BFA Pathway In this five-year interdisciplinary pathway, you study both art and design and the liberal arts in depth, earning a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and a BFA from Parsons.* The BA/BFA (BAFA) pathway equips you with the superior critical thinking and studio skills you need to succeed in today’s complex globalized workplace or in advanced study.

Pre-College and Continuing Studies Want to build a portfolio or take art and design courses before beginning undergraduate studies? Open Campus, The offers open enrollment courses (credit or noncredit) with Parsons, enabling you to explore creativity, build skills, and earn credit. Classes for high school students are held on Saturday mornings and over the summer. Intensive courses for undergraduate and graduate credit are offered each summer on the New York campus and in Parsons programs abroad. Some courses are offered online. newschool.edu/parsons-continuing-studies newschool.edu/parsons-precollege newschool.edu/parsons-summer opencampus.newschool.edu

* Students

in BBA Strategic Design and Management cannot participate in the BA/BFA pathway.

The new school PARSONS

New School’s progressive approach to continuing education,

ACADEMICS

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Parsons Paris Parsons Paris, located in the heart of the city, offers you an intimate, atelier-like environment in which to create, guided by Parsons’ signature curriculum. The learning community is made up of undergraduate and graduate students from around the world, including ones visiting from the university’s NYC campus and other colleges.

Bachelor’s programs currently offered are Art, Media, and Technology (BFA); Fashion Design (BFA); and Strategic Design and Management (BBA). Summer Intensive Studies programs are open to pre-college students (ages 16 years and older).

In Paris—recently voted the best city in which to study*— you discover how bringing together heritage brands, new and makes design relevant worldwide. Small classes foster close interaction with faculty and interdisciplinary collaboration with peers in all programs and with study abroad students from throughout The New School and beyond. ENSAD (École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs), our exclusive local partner, enables you to explore a range of studio practices. Renowned institutions including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs provide unparalleled research opportunities. All of these resources are offered as part of the university’s commitment to preparing you for global creative industries. newschool.edu/parsons-paris

* By Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, a London-based global provider of specialist higher education and career information.

Ranking based on feedback from both academic peers and employers.

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technologies, and social innovation enriches your work

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Explore Art and Design in Global Settings Art and design speak clearly in the global cultural and commercial conversation. Learn the language through workshops and courses in which you work directly with creative communities around the world, sharing skills, knowledge, and perspectives. International educational partners—and Parsons Paris, our European hub—offer sustained cultural and academic immersions. Parsons orients you in global contexts, where creativity catalyzes innovation and change.

Designers at Parsons’ PETLab gaming incubator and residents of St. Louis, Senegal, created a game to develop climate-related disasterpreparedness systems for the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Versions of the game have been tested in Namibia, Kenya, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and the project was presented at the UN Climate Change Conference.

OPPOSITE, TOP: Designer and alumna Donna

Karan partnered with faculty and students on an initiative in Haiti, working with local designer Paula Coles on the DOT (Design, Organization and Training) Center, a new vocational education hub for Haitian artisans. Students helped design the space, explore products to develop, research local practices, and lead making workshops.

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The new school PARSONS

MIDDLE: Parsons and Eugene Lang College of

BOTTOM: Students from Parsons’ School of

Liberal Arts students explored the relationship between the arts and urbanism in Phnom Penh and New York at the Season of Cambodia Festival.

Students curated a related multimedia exhibition documenting the role of the arts in civic life.

Constructed Environments and graduate students in the university’s international affairs program traveled to Jinga, Uganda, to collaborate with Slum Women’s Initiative for Development (SWID) on a project to develop housing.

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Transform Your Concepts into Creations Center facilitates your creative growth and gives you hands-on experience using everything you’ll need as a creator. Available resources include 3D printers; laser cutters; CNC routers; high-speed plotters; printmaking equipment for all media; woodworking, metalworking, and sewing tools; and digital imaging, audio, and production gear.

Photo studios, fabrication and modeling shops, a lighting simulation lab, a video “green room,” and our new Innovation Lab engage your imagination in a range of media. You can work with peers throughout the university at staffed computer stations and collaborate with partners around the world using networked meeting spaces with video links. Groupwork meeting rooms, quiet-study areas, and practice rooms for students creating with performing arts peers offer you additional collaboration spaces. The University Center, our sustainably built campus anchor, encourages interdisciplinary work through its open design and ample co-working areas.

Supporting your research are the university’s libraries and some of the country’s best academic resources, available through the online Research Library Consortium of South Manhattan. At the Kellen Design Archives, you can explore Parsons’ celebrated history in studio disciplines and design studies. The archives span Parsons’ history from its founding to today, conserving primarysource materials produced by our community, including illustrations, graphic design samples, fashion sketches, articles, photographs, and recordings.

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Access to state-of-the-art and traditional tools at the Making

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Surround Yourself with Creativity and scholarship The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center (SJDC), shown on the facing page, is a university hub of creativity and scholarship.

Located on the ground floor of Parsons’ building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 13th Street, the center offers programming including exhibitions curated by the SJDC staff, student work exhibitions, and a rich variety of events advancing the university’s mission to promote public dialogue on the role of art and design in civic life. Gallery spaces offer students opportunities to curate as part of their coursework or by invitation.

The New School’s Art Collection makes passing through campus buildings a transformative experience. Installations created expressly for our community—such as Glenn Ligon’s site-specific commission For Comrades and Lovers (bottom center), which envelops University Center Event Café visitors; José Clemente Orozco’s A Call for Revolution and Universal Brotherhood, a sweeping fresco cycle created in 1931 for The New School; and Kara Walker’s Event Horizon (bottom right), an immersive artwork filling Arnhold Hall’s stairwell—engage with themes and spaces of The New School. Pioneering works from the collection of nearly 2,000, including pieces

by Martin Puryear, Adrian Piper, and photographer and New School teacher Berenice Abbott, are found throughout campus, offering you moments of inspiration and discovery.

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In Become Paris, a digital artwork by Parsons Paris student Diva Helmy, images of historic Parisian statues are projected onto tourists’ faces, suggesting the layers of experience making up an individual’s identity. The use of new media to make historical art relevant is one way Parsons students create work that builds on the past while looking to the future.

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Can art and design prepare you for a world that doesn’t exist yet?

At Parsons, we embrace the new, the unknown, the unimagined. It’s our legacy as innovators since the school’s founding in 1896. Here you boldly face the future with our proven approach to learning, which gives you the perspective and skills you need. Discover creative problem solving, collaboration, visual communication, iteration, prototyping, and analysis—tools that enable you to confidently, flexibly navigate a world in the making. On the solid platform of your Parsons education, you can become a leader in fields that already exist—or pioneer in new ones.

BFA Product Design students developed humanpowered vehicles for the Prototyping 3 course, building mockups to test the components and constructing functional final products. The Monster, shown here, features rack-and-pinion steering and a seat that glides, turning the drive chain.

In a collaborative class, students from Parsons and Mannes School of Music reimagined ways to present live music. Parsons students created wearable technology and other devices with motion-capturing sensors that controlled projected video animations, transforming a recital into an audiovisual experience.

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Students Zach Lieberman and Evan Roth created EyeWriter, a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus built on open source code that allows graffiti artists with paralysis to draw through eye movements.

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Discover Your Creative Path Staff from throughout the university are on hand to help you find your way through your studies and later to a creative career. We listen and offer thoughts on your choice of courses. We show you how to apply classroom learning in professional contexts such as internships and develop job-seeking skills, materials, and networks. And at events, we help you explore careers and find work after you graduate—and even jobs while you’re a student. At the Parsons Career Expo, more than 100 recruiters gather to discuss creative positions with you, review your portfolio, and invite you to apply for jobs. And if you want to pursue advanced studies or start your own business, we offer resources for those next steps, too. Additionally, the New School alumni community keeps you connected to a thriving network of leaders in art, design, academia, the performing arts, the social sciences, and many other fields.

Take a look at what alumni are doing around the world at newschool.edu/alumni.

Souda designers, graduates of the BFA Product Design program, shown here in their studio, employ hand processes to make one-of-a-kind pieces and machine tools for production-scale manufacturing.

They partner with outside designers who create pieces that are compatible with their sustainable production business model.

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Join A Community Designed for your success We do everything possible to help you join the Parsons community and make your experience transformative.

Our team is ready at the planning stages—applying, making the financial commitment, finding housing—and once you’re on campus as well. Staff members devoted to addressing learning-related needs ensure that your academic life flourishes.

Housing Housing isn’t just four walls and a roof. It’s an opportunity to form bonds, ease the transition from home to college, learn to appreciate differences, and make new friends for life. Our five residences extend from Greenwich Village to Chelsea and offer a nurturing, supportive environment for every student as well as many social, educational, and cultural activities. Housing is available for all incoming freshmen who apply by the priority deadline. The priority deadline to apply for housing is June 15 for fall and December 1 for spring.

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Financial Aid

Student Resources

The New School is for students from a

We want you to enjoy yourself, make new

variety of backgrounds. We help fund

friends, and have a smooth adjustment to

institutional scholarships, fellowships,

college life. We are here so that you don’t

grants, and stipends as part of a compre-

have to do it alone. If you have questions,

hensive financial aid program. We also

we have answers, on these topics and more:

participate in government grant, loan, and work-study programs as well as programs for veterans of the U.S. armed services.

If you are admitted to an undergraduate

• Athletics and recreation • Health and wellness • Student disability services

degree program, you will automatically

• Student employment

be considered for merit aid on the basis

• Meal plans

of academic and artistic ability.

Students interested in applying for government and institutional financial assistance programs must file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), using The New School’s code of 002780. File this application electronically at fafsa.ed.gov.

You can email your questions to sfs@newschool.edu.

newschool.edu/students

• Safety and security • Technology help For more information,email us at studentsuccess@newschool.edu.

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International Student and Scholar Services

Academic and Career Advising

We welcome students from around the

Undergraduate students receive ongoing,

world. Whether you are an international

holistic support from academic/career

student or scholar or an exchange visitor,

advisors, who help them design their

you are joining a diverse and thriving

unique degree pathways and prepare

academic and artistic community in one

to effect change in the world after

of the world’s great cities. We offer both

graduation. This innovative approach

immigration advice and cultural support

means students visit only one office

in a welcoming and friendly environment.

to embark upon and complete their

We want The New School to be your home

academic and career advising journey.

away from home.

Advisors are here to help students:

We achieve this by • Providing expertise and support process and offering advisement on the maintenance of legal immigration status, employment, reinstatement,

• Select courses and graduate on time • Think about career options • Consider study and work abroad opportunities

changes of status, program changes,

• Connect with faculty members

and other immigration-related matters

• Locate relevant support services for

• Advising incoming students and scholars on higher education practices in the United States and other cultural adjustment issues • Supporting U.S. students seeking to study abroad through Fulbright programs • Providing excellent international student programs at The New School and with other institutions in New York City and in other countries

first-generation students, veterans, students with disabilities, and others

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throughout the U.S. visa application

• Articulate their values

Can Looking Closer TAke you further?

COME VISIT

Glimpse your future in the present. At Parsons, seeing isn’t just believing—it’s what changes everything. newschool.edu/visit Connect with us. We‘re waiting for you with information, answers, questions of our own, and thoughts that can transform your path ahead.

72 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10011 212.229.5150 or 800.292.3040 thinkparsons@newschool.edu newschool.edu/parsons

Parsons and other colleges throughout The New School offer a rich mix of undergraduate, graduate, and associate’s degrees as well as continuing education, pre-college, and certificate programs.

Discover how design sparks change at newschool.edu/ parsons/academics.

A few facts that set us apart

The new school at A GLANCE

#1 FOR SMALL CLASSES: Among national

• Founded in 1919.

universities, The New School has the highest proportion of classes with fewer than 20 students.

• Located in the heart of NYC in Greenwich Village, with a branch campus in Paris.

2017, U.S. News & World Report

• Houses five schools and colleges.

#3 ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL: Parsons

• Offers 134 degree and diploma programs

School of Design is ranked among the top art and design schools in the world.

2017, Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings

#1 MOST INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: We have a higher percentage of international students than any other U.S. university with more than 10,000 students.

and majors and more than 50 minors.

• Has more than 10,000 degree-seeking students.

• Students come from all 50 states and 116 foreign countries.

• The New School also offers a range of graduate programs. See details at newschool.edu/academics.

2017, U.S. News & World Report

#1 FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILDING: The American Institute of Architects named the New School University Center one of the greenest buildings in the United States—and it’s the largest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified urban university building.

Membership and Accreditation The New School is a member of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and is accredited by the New York State Board of Regents and by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

For full information on the university’s accreditation, visit newschool.edu/provost/accreditation.

The New School is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. All degree programs at the New York City campus of The New School are registered by the New York State Department of Education. Parsons School of Design is also accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD) and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). BBA Strategic Design and Management meets NASAD standards for the Bachelor of Arts—4 years: Design and Management. Registered as a BBA through the New York State Education Department (NYSED).

In the United States, most registration boards require a degree from an accredited professional degree program as a prerequisite for licensure. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), which is the sole agency authorized to accredit professional degree programs in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. regional accreditation, recognizes three types of degrees: the Bachelor of Architecture, the Master of Architecture, and the Doctor of Architecture.

A program may be granted an eight-year, three-year, or two-year term of accreditation, depending on the extent of its conformance with established educational standards. Doctor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degree programs may require a pre-professional undergraduate degree in architecture for admission. However, the pre-professional degree is not, by itself, recognized as an accredited degree. Parsons School of Design offers the following NAAB-accredited degree program: Master of Architecture (pre-professional degree + 90 credits). Next accreditation visit for this program: 2024.

The information published here represents the plans of the university at the time of publication and does not constitute an irrevocable contract between the student and The New School. The university reserves the right to change without notice any matter contained in this publication, including but not limited to tuition, fees, policies, degrees, programs, names of programs, course offerings, academic activities, academic requirements, facilities, faculty, and administrators. Payment of tuition or attendance at any classes shall constitute a student’s acceptance of the administration’s rights as set forth above. The New School is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution. For important information including student rights, campus safety statistics, and tuition and fees, visit newschool.edu/your-right-to-know.

Published 2017 by The New School. Produced by Marketing and Communication, The New School.

Photo credits: Martin Seck, Matthew Septimus

nts.

D

Undergraduate Programs Parsons School of Design Bachelor’s Programs Architectural Design BFA

Environmental Studies BA, BS BA concentration in Urban Ecosystems and Public Policy; BS concentration in Urban Ecosystem Design

Communication Design BFA

Global Studies BA

Design and Technology BFA

History BA

Fashion Design BFA

Interdisciplinary Science BA

Fine Arts BFA

Journalism + Design BA

Illustration BFA

Liberal Arts BA, BS

Integrated Design BFA Interior Design BFA Photography BFA Product Design BFA Strategic Design and Management BBA

Self-designed program Literary Studies BA Concentrations in Literature and in Writing

SCHOOL OF DRAMA Bachelor’s Program Dramatic Arts BFA Integrated training in acting, directing, playwriting, aesthetic inquiry, design, and new dramatic media

SCHOOL OF JAZZ Bachelor’s Program Jazz and Contemporary Music BFA Concentrations in Composition, in Instrumental, and in Vocal. Areas of study include

Philosophy BA

Bass; Drum; Guitar; Piano;

Politics BA

Saxophone; Strings; Trumpet,

Psychology BA

Trombone, and Horn; Voice; and Other Instruments.

Parsons Paris

Screen Studies BA

Bachelor’s Programs

Sociology BA

Art, Media, and Technology BFA

Theater BA

Fashion Design BFA

Urban Studies BA

Strategic Design and

College of Performing arts Bachelor’s Programs

Management BBA

Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts Bachelor’s Programs Anthropology BA The Arts BA Concentrations in Arts

Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students

MANNES SCHOOL

Creative Writing BA

OF MUSIC

Environmental Studies BA, BS

Bachelor’s Programs

Food Studies BA, BS

Composition BM

Global Studies BA

Guitar BM

Liberal Arts BA, BS

Harpsichord BM

in Context, in Dance, and

Orchestral Conducting BM

in Visual Studies

Orchestral Instruments BM

Self-designed program Media Studies BA, BS Musical Theater BFA AMDA Integrated

Contemporary Music BA

Piano BM

Culture and Media BA

Theory BM

Psychology BA

Economics BA

Voice BM

Urban Studies BA

graduates only

Associate’s Program Food Studies AAS

PARsons school of design UnderGraduate Programs