Overview of Liberal Arts Programs & Minors

Maryland Institute College of Art

Students who wish to pursue an area of the liberal arts in more depth than is possible within the BFA degree plan can add a liberal arts minor. Minors are offered in art history and in five areas of study through the department of language, literature & culture. A minor requires that you complete two courses beyond the liberal arts core requirements, and LL&C minors also require a thesis.

Because your liberal arts minor is tailored to your specific interests and, in many cases, research focus, there is no prescribed program of study for the minor. You will select your concentrated program of study from MICA’s generous liberal arts course offerings, supplementing these with offerings from the 14 other colleges of the Baltimore Collegetown Network if necessary. To help you navigate your wide array of options, you’ll work closely with a minor advisor to plan a course of study that allows you to achieve your objectives.

A minor can be designed to address a specific area of interest, and every minor is personalized to your interests in close consultation with your minor advisor. The academic rigor and investment of time required for a minor are recognized at graduation, when students who have completed a liberal arts minor are acknowledged in the Commencement Program.

Art History Minor—Study to Support an Artist’s Explorations

An art history minor at MICA may be crafted to address an unlimited range of student interests and goals. For example, a student may use the minor to develop a unique, personalized course of study in order to:

build a broad understanding of art history by selecting the two surveys of Western art and four courses at the 300-level that survey specific cultures and styles of art (Arts of Asia, African Art Forms, Arts of Japan, Greek Art & Architecture, Art of the Pilgrimage Roads, Oceanic Arts and Cultures, History of Prints, History of Photography, History of Graphic Design, History of the Cinema History of Animation, Roman Art and Architecture, Islamic Art History, Arts of Native Americans), or
intensively study a specific period, style, or topic in art history by selecting courses from MICA’s expansive offerings in such areas as ancient art (World Prehistory, Near East, Greece, Rome, Topics in Ancient Art), Asian art (Arts of Asia, Arts of Japan, The Way of Tea, Japanese Music and Performance Arts, Islamic Art, summer study abroad in Seoul, Korea), or modern art and contemporary art (Art since the 1960s, Visual Culture and the Holocaust, Metaphorical Aspects of Contemporary Art, Cubism, Art in Nature, Architecture in the Public Dimension, History of Photography, History of Cinema, Contemporary Art Seminar).

LL&C Minor—Rigourous Academic Challenge

A similar breadth of opportunities is available within the LL&C minor, which adds the requirement of a substantial thesis as the culmination of the minor program. Recent MICA LL&C minors have focused their studies in such areas as:

a book-length collection of six original plays; minor courses: Literature of the American South, Screenwriting Workshop, One-Act Workshop, American Ugly, Advanced Creative Writing Workshop;
the feminine in German Modernist literature; minor courses: Feminist Theories, History of Existentialism, French Feminism, French language class (through academic exchange), Literature Independent Study;
a study of how the Cuban community in Miami has shaped the urban environment of South Florida; minor courses: Existentialism in Literature; Urbanism in the Modern American City; Sites, Places & Monuments (art history); Urban Theory; course on Cuba at Johns Hopkins University.