It is the first degree-bearing program of its kind. Social Design students will:

• Increase Social Literacy—Develop a deeper understanding of the issues of equity, power, race and privilege that exist at the heart of the social problems we aim to address.
• Deepen Design Literacy—Establish an ethical framework to guide personal practice and learn human-centered design methods to build empathy with and engage people in making and doing.
• Create Professional Pathways—MA in Social Design alumni are pioneering and innovative leaders in the public, private, non-profit, entrepreneurial and academic sectors. Click here for a snapshot of what our alumni are doing.

Program Overview

MICA’s M.A. in Social Design is a 1-year, graduate program that explores the designer’s role and responsibility in . The 30-credit program is comprised of seminar, studio, and elective courses as well as a variety of other immersive and practice-based experiences that take students outside of the institution to learn. Examples include:

• Visiting Faculty—In addition to core faculty and staff, MA in Social Design students learn from visiting faculty across a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
• Practice-based Studio—MA in Social Design students are eligible to enroll in semester-long courses that bring students from a variety of disciplines together with outside partners from government, nonprofit and business sectors to learn and apply the human-centered design process.
• Human-centered Design Intensive—MA in Social Design students learn and experience the human-centered design process in a multi-day, immersive project with a local partner facilitated by a leading practitioner in the field.
• Capstone—MA in Social Design students undertake an immersive, design-driven project that focuses on a specific social problem and applies the methods, tools, and frameworks learned in the curriculum.

Who Should Apply

Ideal candidates for the M.A. in Social Design come from diverse professional backgrounds who share a belief that design must play a role in advancing equity and social justice. All of our students bring curiosity about interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to civic engagement and social change.

• Recent students have come to the program with undergraduate or graduate degrees in anthropology, economics, fine arts, environmental studies, public health and communications.

• Our students bring a wide range of professional experiences, ranging from recent graduates who are early in their careers to those working as physicians, industrial designers, data scientists, artists, writers and teachers. The current cohort includes a service dog trainer and a DJ.

• Some of our students come to the program with an interest in bringing a social design perspective to their existing area of expertise (as in law, journalism, medicine, and entrepreneurship). Others come to the program seeking to move into a design-centric field.

• Students from the DC - Maryland - Virginia area typically represent half of the cohort, with the other half joining from across the United States and internationally.