The department of visual arts and the graduate school of visual arts at the Columbia University offers BFA and MFA degrees in visual arts. The graduate school of visual arts is very selective; typically 20 to 25 students are accepted out of the 750 students who apply every year. MFA students are given a private art studio with round-the-clock-access to one of the special facilities of the arts school. It is a very innovative graduate school situated in one of the great cultural capitals of the world.
Painting, drawing, new forms of art, printmaking, photography and sculpture are all areas of importance at the Pratt Institute. For the MFA course, the students attends two semesters of classes on their major subject and a year of thesis in the subject. They also attend a solo graduate exhibition at the galleries of the institute. At the Pratt art school, the students go through a wide variety of interdisciplinary programs before attending Pratt.
The Master of Fine Arts program at the School of Visual Arts has been designed with an aim that it should help in more than refining the technical skills of students. This institution is the largest independent undergraduate arts college in the United States, offering undergraduate programs in several subjects such as advertising, graphic design, animation, illustration, cartooning, interior design, computer arts, photography and many more.
The MFA course at the Hunter College offers a wide area of training to the students. This training helps to develop their critical as well as analytical thinking. As a part of the program, every student is encouraged to bring up his or her own art through steady contacts with their peers in the studios, help from the faculty tutors, important seminars and theory classes in criticism and the history of art. The students also get a chance to meet several artists, critics and curators during the course period.