Interior Design Interior Design (BFA)
What our students, alumni, and faculty are doing in NYC and worldwide
thinkparsons@newschool.edu
212.229.5150
Program Contact
Carly Cannell, Program Director
Modern American interior design was invented in the early 1900s by Frank Alvah Parsons, and it has evolved at Parsons as a socially engaged practice. Today the research-based, design-intensive BFA Interior Design program prepares you to create comfortable, imaginative, healthful, and intelligently designed interiors. You learn to design interior environments that reflect an understanding of environmental sustainability, cultural differences, and the human need for comfort and well-being.
Your BFA begins with Parsons’ first-year curriculum, which serves as the academic foundation for all undergraduate programs at Parsons. From your second year on, you dive into courses in your major field of study. Art and design history and theory courses develop your research, writing, and critical reasoning skills, and university electives broaden your perspectives.
The Making Center, a spacious studio bringing together creative tools from around the university, offers students unprecedented opportunities to acquire industry-ready skills, transform how products are made, and upend conventional notions of supply chains, local production, mass customization, and craft.
New York City’s thriving creative industry and cultural institutions are part of your Parsons education. Our Career Services Office is deeply connected to the art and design industries and can help you advance your career with industry-oriented internships.
Enjoy access to extensive resources including New School libraries, computer labs, archives, and studios, along with Parsons’ state-of-the-art Making Center, facilities offering a broad array of tools to support your creative and academic growth.
Connect to the organizations, businesses, and entrepreneurs driving global creativity and commerce. In classes, internships, and extracurricular projects, you gain marketable problem-solving skills in sectors ranging from government and nonprofits to tech and creative industries.
Enrich your learning and prepare for work in global contexts with study abroad that exposes you to new perspectives and settings in which to apply your creativity. Our study abroad destinations include, Paris, London, Florence, and more.
Explore sample opportunities to create an interdisciplinary path of study around this major:
Full-time or part-time program (two years, 60 credits); best suited to students who have previous college experience in an unrelated field and want to change careers.
The New School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
