Graduate Minors

Enrich your graduate experience with cross-disciplinary study. The New School is the only university that houses a world-renowned design school, a legendary graduate school of social research, a performing arts college, and diverse graduate professional programs. In keeping with our commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration, The New School now offers graduate minors. These structured study pathways immerse you in disciplines outside of your primary field and expose you to new ideas and alternative modes of research and practice, broadening your skills and expanding your career options.

Graduate minors are made up of three courses, for a total of 9 credits. You can choose to acquire foundational knowledge in a single discipline, such as economics or design studies; investigate emerging interdisciplinary issues, such as migration and capitalism; or develop professional capacities in areas including entrepreneurship and digital storytelling.

Eligibility

Graduate minors are available to all graduate students at The New School, although some minors are closed to students in specific programs. Some programs allow you to use graduate minor credits to meet elective credit requirements. If your program does not include 9 open elective credits, you can pursue a graduate minor by earning elective credits beyond the number permitted by the program.

Your academic advisors can help you select and declare a graduate minor and chart a curriculum that satisfies your degree and minor requirements.

• Available Graduate Minors
  • Capitalism Studies
  • Civic Service Design
  • Creative Community Development
  • Design Studies
  • Design and Urban Justice
  • Global Urban Futures
  • Impact Entrepreneurship
  • Language Studies (application required)
  • Methods and Concepts of Political Economy (application required)
  • Migration Studies (application required)
  • Transmedia and Digital Storytelling (application required)
• Graduate Minor Guidelines
  • Students are not permitted to count one course toward both a core program requirement and a graduate minor. Instead, students may use their electives to pursue courses in a graduate minor.
  • Students must earn the required minimum grades to apply courses toward a minor. Grade requirements and other policies are set by the college in which the minor is housed.
  • Students can retroactively apply successfully completed courses toward a minor upon declaring or applying. See the guidelines below for declaring or applying for a minor. 
  • Students are not permitted to take a minor that is too similar to their main graduate program of study. Please see minors pages for preclusions.
• How to Declare, Change, or Apply to a Minor

  Current students can declare or change a minor by logging in to my.newschool.edu, clicking on the Academics tab, and then clicking on the link to Major/Minor Declarations.

  Students in one-year programs should declare a minor by the end of their first semester of study, ideally before registering for their final term.  Students in programs whose duration is greater than one year should declare a minor by the end of their first year of study.

  Graduate Minors Requiring an Application

  Applications are required for admission to the following minors because of constraints on facilities or the need for a specific level of skill in a particular field:

  • Language Studies
  • Methods and Concepts of Political Economy
  • Migration Studies
  • Transmedia and Digital Storytelling

  The application form for these graduate minors can be accessed by filling out the declaration form.