What Can I Do with My Art Major?

Majoring in art at Georgetown University will not only fine tune your skills and talents within your chosen craft, but it will drive you to work with objects, create, and grapple with forms and ideas across time and geography. With a concentration in either Drawing/Printmaking, Painting, Sculpture, or Photography/Graphic Design and New Media, you are encouraged throughout this program to engage in creative thinking and become visually literate. The program culminates in the Senior Majors Exhibition, a space where seniors present a selection of their work effectively to the Georgetown community and the wider public.

Studying studio art at Georgetown will provide a fantastic basis to prepare for graduate study and a career in the arts. The program encourages students to explore their own definitions of creativity and imagination through a chosen medium, while at the same time working to realize Georgetown’s goal of educating the whole person.  By facilitating an open environment for the free expression of ideas, the studio art program hopes to enhance students’ sense of confidence and self-worth.

The goals of the studio art program are two-fold: first, to develop students’ ability to engage in creative thinking and to become visually literate; and second, to prepare students for graduate study and a career in the arts. The program encourages students to explore their own definitions of creativity and imagination through a chosen medium, while at the same time working to realize Georgetown’s goal of educating the whole person. Students may concentrate their studies on painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, or electronic media, and are additionally required to take one art history course. By facilitating an open environment for the free expression of ideas, the studio art program hopes to enhance students’ sense of confidence and self-worth.

The study of studio art facilitates the development of a core set of skills sought after by employers in a wide range of occupational settings. Throughout your experience in the program, you will obtain the following skills:

Visual Literacy

  • Perceptual organization
  • Organizing sensory information
  • Understanding artistic intent
  • Conveying complex information
  • Communicating visually
  • Synthesizing visual elements

Creative Thinking

  • Independent thinking
  • Utilizing multiple approaches to solve problems
  • Evaluating solutions
  • Creating original sources
  • Seeking diverse perspectives
  • Taking risks

Human Relations

  • Cultural awareness
  • Marketing ideas and works
  • Communicating with clients
  • Listening intently
  • Flexibility and openness to originality
  • Assuming leadership roles

You can use the examples above, and experiences from classes or research projects to enhance your resume. Try plugging in some of your experiences or skills gained into this formula: Accomplished (X) as measured by (Y) by doing (Z).

Sample Resume Class 1, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Member of Class, taught by Prof. ______

  • Developed thematic portfolio on (insert art theme, art medium, concepts applied, etc.) and exhibited artwork in the Senior Majors Exhibition in Spring 2021 
  • Built a portfolio of work in ARTS 330 Photography Studio course and developed advanced photo shooting and printing skills, such as darkroom photo techniques as well as digital photography capturing and compositing techniques
  • Developed animation techniques, such as hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation and object animation and pixelation by (insert course assignments/projects that refined these skills) in ARTS 166 Animation course

Georgetown Alumni have taken their studio art degree across multiple different industries and have applied the skills they learned in studio art across multiple disciplines. 

Helpful Keywords to Improve Searches
There are lots of ways to find good keywords to help your job or internship search process, or even just to learn more about the types of jobs you can do within a specific major. One way to explore this is by checking out the job search tool on Google. 

Once you are in, type in something generic like your major and the world internship afterward. Once you hit enter, it will give you lots of options to explore, but if you want to explore titles, possible career paths, or keywords, hover your mouse over the ‘Title’ tab on the top of the page. This will give you a ton of ideas and options to explore possible keywords.

Sample Internship Opportunities

  • Museums (e.g., National Gallery of Art, United States Marine Corps – History and Museums Division)
  • Illustrator – using QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator (e.g., Consumer Electronics)
  • Nonprofit agencies (e.g., Crafts Center)
  • Design centers (e.g., Wordmarque Design)
  • Magazines (e.g., National Geographic)
  • Marketing and Advertising (e.g., Tim Kenney Marketing)

The Georgetown Art and Art History Department Website is rich with additional information on studying Studio Art.

GU Art and Art History Department 

Professional Associations are a great place to go to dive deeper into the field of art and learn more about what post grad life might look like. 

Vault is a fantastic resource to learn more about specific career fields in the arts. Vault has information such as salary information, work environment, education and training requirements, outlooks, and specific tips for entering into the field. 

Professors & Academic Deans
Georgetown professors and faculty members can be a wonderful resource for Georgetown students. If you are still curious to learn more about the disciplines of a specific major, we’d encourage you to connect with your professors! Outside of office hours, Georgetown has an online interface called GU360 where students can explore and connect with faculty members that are eager to mentor and support students. You can use this interface to learn more about specific department research, specialties, and areas of study within a major.  

You can also connect with your academic dean or counselor to further discuss opportunities within a given major. 

Lastly, each department has a dedicated Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS). This is the individual in charge of coordinating the major program or department as a whole. You can find the Director of Undergraduate Studies by exploring the faculty and staff pages of individual departments websites.

Alumni 
Connecting with alumni is a fantastic way to explore a day in the life of any given major student. There are several different ways to connect with Georgetown Alums. Hoya Gateway is Georgetown’s premier networking platform which connects alumni and students to have meaningful conversations and build a strong network of support. This is a platform alumni opt into with the sole purpose of supporting current students, which means there is an extremely high response rate. 

You can also utilize LinkedIn to connect with Georgetown Alum. A simple alumni search on Georgetown’s LinkedIn profile will help you get connected to approximately 130 thousand alumni, which you can then filter to meet the location, major, industry, or skills that you are interested in exploring.

You can also check out our Post Graduation Outcomes to learn more about what Georgetown alumni in specific majors are up to after graduation. We survey our seniors at the end of each year and into the following year to learn about jobs they secured, service opportunities they committed to, or graduate schools they decided to attend. You can filter by first major to get an idea of what life after Georgetown looks like. You’ll see in many cases that alums are using majors in a wide variety of ways, and your major doesn’t always equal your career path. 

Career Center Staff
You can also connect with career center staff to talk through the possible outcomes of one major over another. In short, there are endless opportunities no matter what major you choose. However, connecting with someone might help you navigate your decision making process a little bit easier. 

At the career center, you have the opportunity to meet with either a Career Exploration Counselor or an Industry Advisor. Career Exploration Counselors can help you talk through concerns, goals, the big picture, and strategies to move forward. You can think of them as generalists and a great place to get started. Industry Advisors can help you think through specific questions about a given career path and provide specific industry information and trends. You can think of them as specialists for once you start to narrow down your possible path. If you think an appointment with one of these individuals would benefit you, you can make an appointment on Handshake.

  • American Musical Culture
  • Art History
  • English
  • Theater and Performance Studies