Futures Studies and Speculative Design Certificate

Individuals, communities, governments, and businesses all face complex questions when making plans for the future. In this certificate program, you focus on building the skills necessary for future image making with compelling immersive sensory experiences. You learn to apply theory and methods to develop and employ projections of desirable and undesirable future scenarios and examine ways futures discourse can shape a project’s or company's path forward.

Introduction

Continuing and Professional Education at The New School takes a forward-looking approach to learning, offering courses and lectures from practitioners at the top of their fields. We offer a wide range of subjects for learners from pre-college students beginning their creative journey to executives from some of the world’s most influential organizations. Here you can thrive whether you’re pivoting professionally, jump-starting your college experience, or looking to add a new skill to your professional toolkit.

Certificate Programs

A springboard for professional advancement, a Parsons certificate is a credential from an accredited university that is a flexible and affordable alternative to a degree program. Students benefit from small class sizes and direct interaction with faculty and peers in a self-paced, online format centered on project-based learning. Ranging in length from two to eight courses, certificates are completed in fewer than two years, some in a single semester. No application is required. Students may be new to art and design, or enroll in order to expand their skills and strengthen their portfolio; many have parlayed their experience into all-new careers and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Executive Education

Our executive education offerings draw from Parsons School of Design and its industry-leading expertise in curricular innovation, collaborative methods, and pioneering uses of technology and experimentation to provide cutting-edge interdisciplinary experiences. While other executive programs focus on “return on investment,” Parsons Executive Education leads with “Return on Design,” which leverages design to improve performance, increase resilience, create new dynamic customer experiences, and maximize growth. Our degree, certificate, and open enrollment programs enable executives to cultivate design as a method and mindset to be used as a catalyst for strategy, a driver for transformation, and a solution to complexity.