Master of Fine Arts (Creative Practice): Creative careers
The inaugural Master of Fine Arts (Creative Practice) (MFA (CP)) degree launched at Victoria University of Wellington at the beginning of 2017. The programme enables graduates to hone their design, film making, film scoring, sound design or theatre skills for a career in the creative industries. As well as completing a major self-directed creative project over the summer, students in the intensive one-year degree study arts management and marketing, and undertake an internship with one of Victoria’s creative industry partners.
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences’ Associate Dean (Academic Programmes) Stuart Brock says Victoria is one of the very few places in the world that offers this level of interaction with industry partners. “Making the internship part of the MFA (CP) not only gives students an opportunity to engage with their craft, it also provides a clear path from gaining the qualification to a career in their chosen industry,” he says.
And it’s not just the interns who are benefiting from the programme. Composer Stephen Gallagher says he was initially dubious about taking on an intern because he felt it would require him to engage more administration than he really had time for. But he found the opposite to be true. “This was certainly not the case and the subsequent experience of having Caitlin as an intern has absolutely changed my mind.”
Other hosts such as Josh Bailey, of Vandervecken Cybernetics, says he immediately benefited from MFA (CP) – Design student Shivashish Andrews’ work while interning with him. “Shivashish produced a documentary to describe my project in an accessible and interesting form, and I really enjoyed the personal creativity and initiative he contributed. I now send the documentary to prospective artistic collaborators, which is so much more efficient and enjoyable than trying to explain with a wall of text.” Josh says he hopes he has the opportunity to work with Shivashish again.
For MFA (CP) students, the advantages of the programme are clear. “The introduction of the internship is a real game-changer for the MFA (CP). I desperately want to pursue music for a living and I feel like because of the way the MFA (CP) establishes these industry relationships, it will actually be possible for me to do this. I’ve been given tangible, physical proof that I can actually do what I love.”—Liam Reid, MFA (CP) – Music.