Overview of Foundation
Maryland Institute College of Art
MICA’s foundation program is a national model in innovative curriculum design and the first step in launching you into the world of contemporary art. It offers the technical and conceptual groundwork necessary for concentration in a studio discipline, provides broad exposure to a variety of media and interdisciplinary options, and helps you build the critical thinking and writing skills needed for success in college and beyond. This is not a generic first-year curriculum.
From your first day, you will be deeply engaged in the study of visual and liberal arts, and you will strengthen your knowledge of the creative use of digital tools, a key component of artistic competency in the 21st century.
In your studio coursework, you will build a strong foundation of skills in drawing, painting, and sculpture. In addition to this thorough grounding in traditional art disciplines, you will develop your ability to think conceptually within the principles of 2D, 3D, and 4D art, as well as contemporary approaches to art making—including multimedia and time-based media—in the yearlong course sequence Elements of Visual Thinking and Phenomena of Color. You will explore the rich array of technological tools available for creative expression and visual conceptualization in your core studio course Electronic Media and Culture (E-MAC).
In an innovative studio/liberal arts collaboration, Elements and Phenomena are linked to the two foundation academic courses: your core art history course, Art Matters, and your core liberal arts course, Critical Inquiry. Concepts you develop in the academic courses will inform your studio explorations—and vice versa. Because the same group of students takes these classes together, you’ll build a close-knit community with a small group of talented students. These classes foster the interdisciplinary dialogue crucial to artists and designers, cultivate a spirit of intellectual curiosity, and reinforce the essential link between critical thinking and art making.
Small, rigorous, innovative classes encourage active and open participation in stimulating dialogues with other talented students, and individual instruction and advice from professors. You will take risks and push beyond the familiar to begin to find your own place in the landscape of contemporary art. You will grow artistically and intellectually, and begin to understand the broader cultural context in which art is made.
Your foundation elective lets you expand your creative experience, test your career interests, and build the self-awareness to make an informed decision about a major.
Beginning in the first week of classes, each department offers a “Major Café” to help you understand the coursework, philosophical approaches, personality, and career possibilities of its major. These events bring together foundation-year students, upper-division students, faculty, and alumni to offer you a better understanding of what you can expect as a major in that department.
At the same time, MICA’s experienced and energetic student affairs staff will be available to help you create a framework of co-curricular experiences upon which you can build friendships, continue your interests beyond the classroom, build career and life skills, and discover all that Baltimore has to offer.
The foundation experience at MICA is challenging. Your schedule will be demanding, requiring careful time management and hard work. You will learn the importance of balancing your personal life with the demands of the curriculum—essential for a life both as a successful artist and as a human being. You will learn to understand and accept constructive criticism of your work given by an outstanding faculty of accomplished professional artists.
Foundation courses are designed and taught by faculty who also teach in the upper levels of the College, so they prepare you well for the challenges you will face throughout your time at MICA. Every effort will be made to match you with teachers who will challenge you to excel and support you when you need assistance. Your Foundation advisor will typically be the professor who teaches your Elements and Phenomena classes. So your advisor will spend an entire year getting to know you, will be a listener, mentor, and guide, and will assist you in defining your creative, life, and career goals to help you make the most of MICA’s programs and resources.
As demanding as it will be, your first year at MICA will set the stage for the creative, productive, and exhilarating experiences that will follow as you continue your MICA education.