The Best MFA Programs Combining Top-Tier Training with Real-World Preparation
Over the past decade, Long Beach has experienced a cultural renaissance with significant investment in world-class museums and performance venues. This vibrant arts community, along with close proximity to Los Angeles, has attracted exceptional MFA programs catering to the next generation of creative professionals. Students obtain rigorous training while gaining access to coveted industry resources.
Dynamic Hands-On Education Across Leading Institutions
Long Beach institutions utilize a hands-on educational model, ensuring students apply classroom techniques to real-world creative projects. The California State University Long Beach (CSULB) campus contains multiple esteemed programs facilitating experiential learning.
The school’s Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, for example, provides MFA candidates in Conducting and Composition abundant conducting and performance opportunities. Students regularly lead orchestra and choral concerts both on campus and at prominent Southern California venues. Alumni have gone on to compose for video games or conduct internationally-touring jazz ensembles and classical orchestras.
Similarly, CSULB’s School of Art empowers MFA students through practical experience. Aspiring curators and gallery managers intern at the University Art Museum to build exhibition design skills. Fine arts graduates showcase paintings, photographs, and sculptures at the annual degree show attended by over 50 leading gallery owners and critics.
Looking beyond CSULB, smaller private institutions also adopt an experiential focus. The non-profit 18th Street Arts Complex offers fully-funded MFA residencies, allowing grad students to self-direct public art projects under staff guidance. They practice pitching works to corporate sponsors and local government overseeing public art grants.
Access to Los Angeles’ Elite Cultural Institutions
Long Beach lies just 25 miles south of Los Angeles’ museums, concert halls, entertainment studios, and arts organizations, offering MFA students unique visibility. Programs incorporate special access to these coveted resources.
The Laguna College of Art & Design (LCAD), for instance, provides Graphic Design majors opportunities to attend guest lectures from artists at the world-famous Broad Museum. Game Art students tour leading animation studios behind series like The Simpsons and Family Guy.
Azusa Pacific University leverages its proximity differently, attracting elite Los Angeles talent to teach classes. The school’s MFA in Screenwriting, for example, includes courses led by writers of acclaimed shows like Breaking Bad, The Office, and Stranger Things. APU instructors open doors for students, facilitating networking events with entertainment executives and talent agents.
Industry-Tested Faculty Providing Specialized Career Training
In addition to location privileges, Long Beach MFA programs boast exceptionally experienced teaching staff possessing key industry connections. The University of West Los Angeles (UWLA)’s creative writing department embodies this advantage.
The Fiction concentration, spearheaded by UWLA Professor Mona Simpson, provides training directly from an award-winning novelist. Simpson imparts the writing and editing techniques which earned her global literary prizes. Visual Arts students meanwhile learn from CSULB Professor Nola Yergen, whose abstract paintings were just acquired by the Getty Museum.
These industry experts supplement artistic coaching with career mentoring. Alumni praise the entrepreneurial guidance received across Long Beach MFA programs, covering topics like branding, freelancing, and small business ownership – critical knowledge for monetizing creative talents.
Varied Concentrations Across Artistic Mediums and Genres
Long Beach offers graduate programs spanning nearly every artistic field, from the traditional visual arts to niche concentrations preparing students for specialized roles.
While larger research institutions like CSULB and Biola University feature comprehensive fine arts offerings in areas like painting, sculpting, and photography, smaller colleges provide unique focused programs. The Los Angeles Film School, for instance, offers an MFA specifically tailored towards Motion Picture Production, using the latest digital camera and editing equipment.
Those interested in performing arts can select concentrated tracks in stage management, choreography, opera direction or jazz composition across institutions like the LBCC Pacific Coast Campus, CSULB, and Long Beach Playhouse. Options even extend to arts administration, curatorial practice, academic research, and art criticism through Antioch University and Claremont Graduate University.
Long Beach graduate programs stand out for fusing rigorous industry-focused training with expansive creative exploration unseen at large public universities. Learning from top working professionals, students obtain the skills and connections to monetize their artistic talents.
The career preparedness orientation, however, never undermines creative freedom. Programs nurture experimentation through flexible curriculum allowing students to cross artistic boundaries. Performers enroll in visual arts electives while animators take filmmaking classes. Even divisions between fine art and design blur through emerging concentrations like information graphics and data visualization.
As an education reform expert, I predict even more integration between left-brain and right-brain learning within Long Beach MFA programs. Administrators must encourage cooperation between engineering, computer science, and business divisions with arts departments. Doing so will produce artist-CEOs equally adept at creative expression and commercial optimization.
Ultimately Long Beach institutions offer the perfect blend of artistic license and real-world practicality. Surrounded by elite museums and studios, students unlock professional networks preparing them for impactful creative careers. The city represents a launchpad for tomorrow’s artistic innovators and entrepreneurs seeking to make a living from their imagination.
