Why major in Art?
The art degree provides a comprehensive liberal arts education coupled with professional resident instruction in art. Depending on your objectives and course choices, this degree provides preparation for a professional career, a foundation for graduate studies, or a liberal arts education.
Students have many resources available for developing a broad base of experiences that translate directly into developing a professional portfolio. Visits to Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C., support contemporary views of artists working today. Academic travel will broaden your perspective. Visiting artists, critiques, workshops, and exhibition opportunities on campus all support students’ preparedness for professional life as an artist.
You might thrive in the Art major and the careers it leads to if you are...
Visually observant and detail-oriented
Comfortable giving and receiving critique
Able to balance creative vision with client or audience needs
Self-motivated and disciplined about your craft
Art Careers
Job Growth
An estimated 84,900 openings are projected each year, on average* reflecting strong, ongoing demand for creative professionals.
Job Titles and Median Salaries
Art Directors: $111,040
Craft and Fine Artists: $56,260
Fashion Designers: $80,690
*Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024
Career and Professional Development: Setting You Up for Success
From your first day at Penn State Abington, you can access tools provided by the Career and Professional Development team to prepare for the future.
- On-campus networking opportunities
- Internships
- Supports such as resume reviews and mock interviews
Coursework
Every course is designed to build the technical skills and creative portfolio you'll need for a professional career, graduate study, or a lifelong practice in art. You can explore:
Sculpture, ceramics, and painting
2D Digital art and computer graphics
Drawing techniques, materials, and tools
The Student Experience
Art students displayed sculptures, wore papier-mache alien heads, and sailed small boats decorated as UFOs at the Independence Seaport Museum in Penn's Landing. Abington Experience drives students' art, tech event on Philly waterfront.
Media Concentrations
The Art major at Penn State Abington offers six areas of concentration:
- Drawing & Painting is dedicated to an interdisciplinary, multimedia approach that embraces painting, drawing, installation, and computer-generated image-making.
- Printmaking classes cover work in relief (linoleum and woodcut), etching, monotype, and collagraph. Advanced projects include color, photo processes, large-scale printing, and digital printmaking.
- Sculpture includes classes on the figure as well as work in: wood, metal, molding, casting, carving.
- Ceramics welcomes both functional and sculptural approaches to the art form, with work in: pottery, clay, wheel throwing, hand-building.
- newMedia is visual art crafted with digital tools with work in: physical computing, fabrication, design, web, graphic, interactive, 3D modeling, animation.
- Photography combines chemical darkroom and digital imaging techniques with a wide range of camera exploration.
You can also combine the Art curriculum with a minor to enrich your program and give you flexibility in career choices.
