The New School was founded in 1896 by American Impressionist William Merritt Chase. Back then, the school was known as The Chase School. In 1904, Arts Educator Frank Alvah Parsons joined the school, later becoming its sole director. Between 1904 and 1910, parsons launched a Costume Design Program, Interior Decoration, and Advertising.
Today, known as The New School/Parsons, this art and design college serves 5,100 students enrolled in 130 degree and diploma programs across five schools including the Schools of Art and Design History and Theory; Art, Media, and Technology (AMT); Constructed Environments; Design Strategies, and the School of Fashion.
Programs for animators are offered through the School of Art, Media, and Technology. Options include BFA and MFA degrees in Design & Technology. Pathways include Creative Technology and Game Design. Minors in Immersive Storytelling and Comics and Graphic Nature are also available, as well as a related program—the BFA in Art, Media, and Technology, offered at Parsons Paris (est. 1921).
The BFA in Design & Technology is a 120 credit hour STEM-designated program that takes four years to complete, full-time. The BFA Creative Technology pathway “focuses on methods of combining physical computing, creative coding, user experience, responsive environment, and immersion technology for innovative design solutions,” says the school.
The Game Design pathway “emphasizes the aesthetic aspects of designing games.” It provides a set of tools that grows along with students’ skills and provides them with an understanding of the game design process, from brainstorming to game publication.
Course highlights for the pathways include Core Lab Environments, Core Studio Environments, Design Studies, Drawing/Imaging, Sustainable Systems, Space/Materiality, and Time. Students in both pathways will have the opportunity to visit and engage in projects with industry leaders and organizations such as Apple, Atari, Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, MTV, Nickelodeon, Rockwell Interaction Lab, Siemens, and UNESCO. Students also have access to the university’s extensive libraries, galleries, and state-of-the-art facilities, which allows them to engage their creativity and showcase their work.
Graduates leave the program prepared for careers in advertising, animation, film, game design, graphic arts, hardware engineering, motion graphics, software design, and virtual reality and immersion experience design.
Parsons full-residency, two-year MFA program is a STEM-designated, studio based degree with areas of practice including critical design, data visualization, digital fabrication, game design, interaction design, new media art, physical computing, and wearable technology. Through Collaboration Studio courses, students in this 60 credit hour program have the opportunity to work with fellow graduate students in related programs including Communication Design, Data Visualization, and Transdisciplinary Design.
MFA students also have opportunities to work on real-world projects with external partners. Past partners include Apple, Eyebeam, gameLab, Human Rights Watch, Intel, Mozilla, NASA, Ralph Lauren, Red Bull, the Red Cross, Samsung, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art,
MFA graduates go on to establish careers in 2D and 3D animation, digital filmmaking, game design, interaction design, mobile and application design, motion graphics, new media art, UI and UX design, and web design.