The SMFA’s Studio Diploma Program, formerly the Diploma Program, offers you the rare opportunity to pursue your vision by immersing yourself in your studio practice. You’ll take 33 percent more studio courses than in the BFA Program, giving you time to focus your voice and enrich your practice. With access to 14 studio areas and a community of teachers who are all skilled professional artists, you will develop and grow in a supportive, interdisciplinary environment.

One of the nation’s most established programs of its kind, the Studio Diploma Program is rooted in an intensive all-elective curriculum—an ideal choice if you are motivated to shape and develop your own studio practice. The SMFA’s interdisciplinary approach allows you to develop your practice in one discipline or in several—and to refocus your path as your ideas change. 

Many Studio Diploma Program graduates go directly into their own professional practice, while others pursue graduate studies in one of the many MFA programs that acknowledge the Studio Diploma Program certificate. Program graduates are also exclusively eligible to participate in the SMFA's unique Fifth Year Certificate Program, an independent study year with mentoring that culminates in a major year-end exhibition and juried Traveling Scholarship Awards.  

The Studio Diploma  Program reflects the SMFA’s longstanding commitment to the tradition of studio practice as the core of an artist’s experience, as well as our updated emphasis on a wide range of 21st-century skills, cultural diversity, and an interdisciplinary approach.