What Are You Going To Do Here For 5 Years?
As a five-year Combined Degree junior now, I am excited to continue my studies in Art History and Studio Arts, while minoring in Ancient World Archaeology. Knowing that I always enjoyed art and history, my first year, I took a whirlwind of classes in International Relations, History, and Archaeology along with my distribution requirements.
The history of the Art and Architecture Department at Tufts is unique as you will experience two different campuses and styles of learning. In the first semester of my second year, I loved learning about each crook of Armenian architecture in “Making Medieval Armenia”. This class was more lecture and theory-based, which grounded my academic writing and comprehension skills. My professor, Kate Franklin, also used to work as an archaeologist, so I was inspired to take classes within the Archaeology Department. Slowly, I realized that many classes across the humanities are cross-listed which made balancing my majors and minors on two campuses easy. For instance, for my Ancient World Archaeology minor, I completed a quarter of my five courses in Talloires, France (with Tufts in Talloires) in the “Roman Gaul: Gauls, Greeks, and Romans and the Shaping of French History” Classics Department class.
At the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Fenway, I enjoy the experimental and materials-focused lens of the Visual Material Studies (VMS) courses. This department provides art history classes for our Bachelor of Fine Arts students but is also open to all who are interested. Some of the classes within the VMS department are: “Reassessing Museums” (which is still one of my favorites!), “Histories of Film,” and “Food as Sculpture.” I am never bored of our vast subjects and mediums to study here.
I love that these classes bring us out of the classroom to speak with curators, designers, and historians at the Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard Peabody Museum, Harvard Art Museum, and so forth! I completed my final paper about Paul Gauguin for the "French Art and Society" class, while watching a video installation by my photography professor at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Putting these academic interests together with five hour studios, either in the photo labs, Riso studio, or ceramics studio, is a balance that I love. Lastly, this combined degree is not limited to humanities students like myself; I have several friends studying Human Factors Engineering while making movable sculptures which join all of their passions together!