Bachelor of Fine Arts

Bachelor of Fine Arts

The BFA program provides the opportunity to combine an in-depth, rigorous liberal arts education at Tufts University with intensive studio arts training at SMFA. Students are considered to be fully enrolled at both schools, and graduate with a BFA degree from Tufts University. A wide array of art history courses taught by Tufts faculty are offered on the SMFA campus, allowing you to begin your academic studies while enrolled in a concentrated studio program. The studio curriculum in the BFA program is entirely elective; you are free to select the courses, faculty members and community resources deemed most important to your artistic development.

Students in the Tufts BFA program who are interested in becoming an art teacher can apply to the MAT program in Art Education. This rigorous path of study is well-suited for artists who are interested in urban education and teaching in multicultural environments. Graduates of the BFA + MAT earn a degree from Tufts and are highly qualified for positions in the teaching field.

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts was designed by artists, for artists. It puts you, the artist, at the centre. You will be encouraged here. You will be pushed. To take risks. To work in a medium you've never tried before. But you won't be told what to do. You will work with the faculty to develop your own voice, your own point of view; which is why our students, our graduates, go on to define new directions in the arts. Many are pioneers in their field. Others create entirely new fields. The education you receive here will prepare you for a world that is constantly changing and constantly placing very high demands on its participants.

The SMFA is a challenging place; it is designed to be that way. But in the end, it is an experience that will be profoundly rewarding. And that is what a really good education is all about.

The mission of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is to provide an education in fine arts—for artists of all levels—that is interdisciplinary and self-directed. This education values cultural, artistic and intellectual diversity; it embraces a wide range of media; it stresses the development of individual vision and its relation to culture in general; it values equally the knowledge gained by thinking and doing; it is deeply engaged with the world as a whole. If the mission is constant, its practice is always transforming.

At the SMFA, you'll shape your own artistic process by choosing from an expansive range of studio art courses in 18 areas of study.