Studio Arts Exploration

Spend up to a year exploring RIT’s studio art options.

Overview for Studio Arts Exploration

Explore which studio arts option bests fits your career goals and aspirations.
Spend up to a year taking courses without impacting your time to graduation.

If you want to pursue studio arts but are still determining which discipline best matches your interests, the studio arts exploration option is for you. The School of Art offers a BFA degree in studio arts with options in ceramics, expanded forms, furniture design, glass, metals and jewelry design, printmaking, painting, and sculpture. In your first year, you will work closely with your academic advisor to select courses that best align with your interests.

The studio arts exploration option requires the submission of a portfolio. View our Portfolio Requirements for more information.

* The BFA programs in medical illustration and illustration are not part of this exploration program.

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Featured Work and Profiles

Intro to Sculpture Course

Christina Leung Get an inside look at the welding assignment in faculty Christina Leung's Intro to Sculpture course. Majors from across RIT's College of Art and Design welded metal sculptures that were publicly...
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Molten Glass 3D Printer

RIT's glass program hosted the artist/designer/engineer team behind Evenline as artists in residence for the spring 2023 semester. The innovative company stationed its only-one-of-its-kind molten...
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Drawing Projects

Emily Glass A survey of projects by first-year students in Senior Lecturer Emily Glass's Drawing 1 class. The foundations course is an introduction to the visualization of form, thought, and expression through...
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Artists Print! Workshop

RIT’s Artists Print! event had the printmaking studio buzzing with activity. The weeklong residency program invited 12 renowned artists to campus for a lively week of creating and exploration. With...
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'Nailed It!' ceramics assignment

Equal parts art history lesson and hands-on making, the RIT ceramics Josiah Wedgwood's Legacy course examines the evolution of 18th-century European ceramics under the influence of Josiah Wedgwood’s...
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'Sp(arrows)' Exhibition

Taylor Kennedy, Annalisa Barron "Sp(arrows)" is a two-person exhibition at RIT City Art Space featuring Annalisa Barron and Taylor Kennedy '15 (fine arts studio), whose combined work explores the cathartic relationship of...
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Explore All

Admissions and Financial Aid

First-Year Admission

A strong performance in a college preparatory program is expected. This includes:

4 years of English
3 years of social studies and/or history
3-4 years of mathematics
2-3 years of science
Studio art experience and a portfolio of original artwork are required. View Portfolio Requirements for more information.

Learn How to Apply

Financial Aid and Scholarships

100% of all incoming first-year and transfer students receive aid.

RIT’s personalized and comprehensive financial aid program includes scholarships, grants, loans, and campus employment programs. When all these are put to work, your actual cost may be much lower than the published estimated cost of attendance.
Learn more about financial aid and scholarships

Facilities

Events

November 7

Glass Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Selva Aparicio
December 6

Beyond Fashion 2024

October 10, 2024

Venice Art Biennial showcases RIT's extensive creative community

Six faculty are featured in an exhibition in Venice that showcases the College of Art and Design's breadth of creative disciplines through the unification of sculpture, film, photography, and industrial design.
June 3, 2024

Recent glass graduate continues RIT trend of Windgate-Lamar Fellowship recipients

Spider Martins ’24 (studio arts BFA - glass option) is a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship nominee for their work incorporating themes of personal identity and challenging the notion of what constitutes “high craft.”
May 8, 2024

Graduating student embarks on France Fulbright journey to bridge art and history

Emma Herz Thakur '24 (ceramics and illustration) aims to create connections between practicing artisans and museum collections as a Fulbright Scholar working in partnership with French potters and France's Natural Museum of Natural History.