Call for applications: MFA Design

Broaden your awareness of the contexts of design. Deepen your understanding of the creative process. Expand your analytical skills. Gain new perspective on the discipline through travel opportunities.

Located in the heart of Los Angeles’ downtown Arts District, the USC Roski MFA Design program provides you the opportunity to discover and develop a unique and relevant contemporary practice in a rapidly changing world.

The Roski MFA Design program provides a unique experience that focuses on wide-ranging experimental design and social practice. It also offers curricular depth and opportunities for creative and intellectual exploration only available at a world-class university. Positioned on the Pacific Rim, and in one of the world’s major arts and design capitals, we offer a vast array of cross- and interdisciplinary opportunities in an unparalleled environment for advance study and practice.

The 25,000-square-foot USC Roski Graduate Building campus boasts an open-concept studio space with collaborations spaces, a fabrication space, classrooms, a conference room and kitchen, all outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment and technologies. 

The Makers Fabrication Space includes a variety of 3D fabrication equipment, including 3D printers and laser and digital cutters, as well as 2D output devices (laser, large format, Riso and banner printers). Additional equipment includes sewing machines, a floor loom, silkscreen supplies, projection equipment, equipment for documentation and a selection of hand tools. Graduate students are given a designated workspace with a lockable storage area and 24/7 access to the studio space, as well as onsite technical support including Adobe CS and Lynda.com. A 2,000-square-foot gallery provides exhibition space and a dedicated Designer-in-Residence studio allows students to access the creative processes of leading designers from around the world.

Work with our internationally renowned faculty of designers, artists, critics, and culture makers, as well as an expanded community of creatives through the Visiting Designer and Designer-in-Residence forums. Launched in 2018, this five-term, 56-unit studio-based program is taught by leading practitioners in design, including program director Ewa Wojciak, renowned designer April Greiman, as well as Roski Dean Haven Lin-Kirk. The Roski lecture series and in class visiting industry leaders engage the students in current conversations about the field of design and the international study trips expand the conversation to a broader stage.   

Study at USC provides a variety of experiences and new perspectives through interdisciplinary collaboration and exploration—alongside of aspiring architects, filmmakers, musicians, dancers and choreographers, and actors and scenic designers—and with courses in literature, environmental sciences, medical and health research, urban development or countless other fields among USC’s almost 200 majors and 150 minors. 

Broaden your studies beyond art and design in one of the country’s most talked-about, imaginative and authentic urban neighborhoods.

Teaching Assistantships are available to second-year students.

For details, visit www.roski.usc.edu or email penelope@usc.edu