Careers
Study Studio Art. Do Anything.
What can I do with a Studio Art major?
Our recent graduates have gotten great jobs in technology, consulting, and government, while many also pursue graduate school in the humanities or sciences. A significant percentage also pursue full-time service work for a year or more, seeking to make a difference in the world by helping others.
Skills you'll learn
- Ability to approach problems in non-routine ways using analogy and metaphor
- Conditional or abductive reasoning (posing "what if" propositions and reframing problems)
- Keen observation and the ability to see new and unexpected patterns
- Ability to risk failure by taking initiative in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty;
- Ability to heed critical feedback to revise and improve an idea
- Capacity to bring people, power, and resources together to implement novel ideas
- Ability to draw on multiple means (visual, oral, written, media–related) to communicate novel ideas to others
- Ability to take complex and often abstract problems or ideas and make them visual, physical, tangible; often translating the verbal into the non-verbal
- Integrate and use core creative abilities more often and more consistently than do students in almost all other fields of study
Madeline Baker ’12
Senior Design Manager at Owl Labs in London
“I use what I learned in my major on a daily basis through creative decisions. I specialize in brand strategy and data visualization, two of the more analytical subsets of design, but even the calculated parts of my job are rooted in my foundational art knowledge. The benefits of studying studio art are very real. Creative passion can be channeled into any job or career path, not just artistic ones. studio art teaches you to really care about what you want to do regardless of what that is. The art program at Notre Dame educates you in finding your voice and expressing your opinion.”
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Madeline Baker ’12
Senior Design Manager at Owl Labs in London
“I use what I learned in my major on a daily basis through creative decisions. I specialize in brand strategy and data visualization, two of the more analytical subsets of design, but even the calculated parts of my job are rooted in my foundational art knowledge. The benefits of studying studio art are very real. Creative passion can be channeled into any job or career path, not just artistic ones. studio art teaches you to really care about what you want to do regardless of what that is. The art program at Notre Dame educates you in finding your voice and expressing your opinion.”
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Julie Farstad ’97
Professor of painting, Kansas City Art Institute
Julie Farstad is a professor of painting and co-chair of the Painting Department at the Kansas City Art Institute. As an artist, she explores native plants, motherhood, and the act of cultivation in the context of ecological crisis in mixed media studio artwork and community-based painting projects. Farstad earned an MFA in Painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000. She has exhibited her work nationally, with solo shows most recently at Zg Gallery, Plug Projects in Kansas City, Missouri, and Studios Inc. in Kansas City.
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Waleed Johnson ’15
Engineer, Ford Motor Company
An engineer by day, developing mobile apps for Ford Motor Company, and artist by night, Johnson has had his work shown in galleries in Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. At Notre Dame, he was a scholar in the Reilly Dual Degree program in Arts and Letters and Engineering, completing his B.A. in studio art and his B.S. in computer science engineering and winning the 2015 Barbara H. Roche Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Painting, as well as the Mabel L. Mountain Painting Prize.
Johnson recently wrote an article for the International Review of African Art.
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Shelby Alexander ’14
Art Director, Mattel (Barbie)
Shelby Alexander, née Grubbs, majored in studio art, with a concentration in painting. She currently works full-time for Mattel as art director, Barbie. She previously designed & art directed for Procter & Gamble Beauty, where she lent her vision to both national and global skincare brands like Olay. Alexander also continues to create and exhibit large-scale, mixed-media work in galleries and museums across the country. Most recently, she held her fifth solo exhibition, Bad Talents: Above the Fold, at the Indianapolis Art Center in Spring/Summer of 2022.
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Mary McGraw ’17
Master's in Digital Media program, NUI Galway in Galway, Ireland.
After graduating from Notre Dame, Mary moved to Ireland to complete a master's in digital media program at NUI Galway. She stayed in Galway, where she works as a digital marketing executive for Galway International Arts Festival and co-director at 126 Gallery. “I am interested in marrying my design, fine art, and photography skills to create digital narratives and content that serves to enrich and give back to communities,” she said.
92% of Notre Dame Studio Art majors found full-time employment, enrolled in graduate school, entered service programs, or launched independent projects within six months of graduation.
Note: Outcomes data comes from First Destination reports, a survey of recent graduates conducted by the Notre Dame Center for Career Development and Office of Strategic Planning and Institutional Research. Status is known for more than 90% of each graduating class.
Independent projects include activities such as writing a novel, making a film or fine arts project, traveling the world and other gap-year activities, internships, etc.