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Not ready for MLA, but unsure of how to find out
Hello,
I'm an art school grad who's been out of school for about 4 years now. I'm interested in pursuing an MLA/MFA at Penn, but really do not know where to start professionally.
I've done freelance copywriting, freelance marketing for farm, a year-long acting course, and even a landscape architecture portfolio preparation class at UC Berkeley, but short of starting to try to make it as a painter who really likes the ideas of David Harvey, Burle, and Terry Irwin, I don't know how I can gain practical experience that would reflect my experience/interest in lieu of having a degree in LA.
Any suggestions? What are some ways to inch forward in the profession without a degree? I'm open to the idea that this degree may not be for me, but I'm wondering how I can find out how.
Try an internship but be warned, you'll have to start at the bottom of the totem pole though.
You're ready for a degree now. I can't speak to Penn specifically but at the GSD roughly half of all new admits come from non-design backgrounds. Yes, people who haven't opened AutoCAD can get into professional design programs.
I cant speak to the professional/non professional ratio @ Penn but I'd suspect its quite similar. You have the art school background, which is a major plus, you can talk about art and a specific medium of it with specificity and detail, AND presumably you can write a coherent, persuasive SOP to the adcom detailing why you want to study LA @ Penn. From there, its a matter of assembling a portfolio (marketing / copywriting work is perfectly acceptable for this, as is undergrad work), getting some good letters of recommendation, and not cratering your GRE's. You also have ~7 months to get this done.
I just finished my MLA at Penn. I'd be happy to talk with you or put you in touch with one of my classmates who's working on her MLA/MFA if you'd like.
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