In the United States, a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is a terminal graduate degree in an area of visual, plastic, literary or performing arts typically requiring two to three years of study beyond the bachelor level. Coursework is primarily of an applied or performing nature with the program often culminating in a major work or performance.
Common fields of study include Theater, Creative Writing, Filmmaking, and Visual Arts. The MFA is a terminal degree, and sufficient for permanent, tenured appointment to professorships in appropriate departments at colleges and universities. At present there are very few doctoral degree programs in these fields, but the DFA, or Doctor of Fine Arts, often awarded as an honorary degree, is being introduced as an earned degree at some schools (for instance, the the Yale School of Drama, for dramaturgy and dramatic criticism). Other universities are developing PhD programs in fields such as Creative Writing, Visual Arts and Theater. Because of the large number of MFA degree holders relative to available full-time teaching positions, new doctoral-level programs may provide a temporary employment advantage to their earliest graduates and might recruit on this basis.
Programs generally require a bachelor's degree prior to admission, but many do not require that the undergraduate major be the same as the MFA field of study. The most important admissions requirement is often a sample portfolio or a performing audition.
The MFA differs from the MA in that the MFA, while an academic program, centers around practice in the particular field, while programs for the MA (which is normally insufficient for regular professorial appointments in most schools) are centered on academic study of the field.
In the discipline of the visual and plastic arts specifically, the College Art Association has written guidelines[1] setting MFA standards.
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