Degree Requirements: Arts and Sciences BFA

BFA students are required to complete a total of 120 credits to graduate. Of these, 76 credits must be in studio coursework and for which 9 courses must meet the Studio Level requirement (beginning in Fall 2025). Within this requirement, students have the freedom to choose those courses that will best help them realize their artistic vision and voice. This process is a fluid and organic one, and will shift and change over the course of a student’s undergraduate experience.

To earn a BFA degree at Tufts University, all students must:

• Earn a minimum of 120 credits.
• Complete 76 credits of studio coursework. (Nine courses must meet the Studio Level Requirement detailed below.)
• Complete 42 non-studio credits of Arts and Sciences Distribution requirements coursework.
• Satisfy the residency requirement of eight full-time semesters, according to the stipulations outlined in The Bulletin.

Studio Level Requirement (Beginning Fall 2025)

For additional guidance in navigating SMFA’s open curriculum, the SMFA faculty developed a new Studio Level requirement for undergraduate students matriculating in Fall 2025 and later.

In addition to the above overall studio credit progress, students must complete the following number of introductory, intermediate, and advanced level studio coursework by certain semesters to graduate with the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. These courses can be completed in any medium of your choosing.

• 3 Introductory Level BFA Studio courses by the end of their second semester of study
• 3 Intermediate Level, including Int/Adv Level and Open to All Level, courses by the end of their 6th semester of study
• 3 Advanced Level courses in their last three semesters of study (semesters 6-8 for BFA students). 

BFA Course Requirements

Distribution Requirements

Writing Requirement

Writing is fundamental to an undergraduates arts education. All BFA students are required to take two semesters of college writing in order to graduate. You should complete this requirement in your first year except under extraordinary circumstances. Most students complete this requirement by taking English 1 or English 3 in the first semester or English 2 or Philosophy 2 in the second semester.

History of Art

All BFA students are required to take five courses (at least 3 credits each) in the History of Art as part of their academic requirements. In their first semester, first-time BFA students take Introduction to Visual and Critical Studies. The other four courses in the History of Art requirement can be satisfied by completing courses in the Visual & Critical Studies department based on the SMFA campus or in the Art History department based on the Medford campus.

Language/Culture

There are a variety of ways the Language/Culture requirement can be satisfied including: Foreign Language study or study of a specific culture through courses taught in English. Please consult with the SMFA Advising team regarding courses that satisfy this requirement.

Science/Technology

The BFA Science/Technology requirement can be satisfied by any course that satisfies the Mathematics or Natural Science requirement for Arts and Sciences students. On SIS, students should look under the AS-Natural Science or AS-Mathematics course attribute to find out what courses satisfy the Science/Technology requirement.

In addition to the above distribution requirements, students must also complete 1 full-credit course in the Social Sciences and Humanities as well as 3 Arts and Sciences elective courses, which can be any academic course offered on either the Fenway and Medford campus. One Arts and Sciences elective requirement can be satisfied by an art history course either through the Visual and Critical Studies department on the SMFA campus of the Art History department on the Medford campus.

Review Boards

The Review Board is an essential aspect of the SMFA experience. At the Review Board, students engage in a conversation about their work with faculty and students, which often provides the basis for the student's revision of his or her own artistic aims.

The process affords students and faculty the opportunity to think about the art at hand as the effect of an organic creative process, rather than as a set of isolated pieces created in different classes. By seeing the semester's work as a whole, faculty and students at the Review Board are able to recognize the explicit and implicit relationships between the pieces presented. This ability to understand the work, where the context is determined by the artist, allows the Review Board participants to draw out the work's organizing questions, ideas and aims that might not have been readily apparent. This experience furthermore provides an opportunity for students to articulate and understand more fully the integration of their research-based practices with their studio projects, and to that end often involves Visual and Critical Studies faculty.

By requiring that students experience the Review Board at the end of each semester, SMFA helps students to cultivate the ability to articulate their own artistic direction and questions, to evaluate their needs and achievements and to theorize and plan their own development as an artist. The Review Board is one of the most valuable and unique experiences at SMFA, an experience very much in line with the school's mission as a teaching institution devoted to cultivating the artist as intellectual, as interdisciplinary-informed and, above all, as self-directed.

Need Help Completing Your Degree Audit Worksheet?

We've created a new "Degree Progress" tool in SIS.

Learn How to Use the "Degree Progress" Tool in SIS

Student Degree Audit

The Registrar has developed training documents to help students familiarize themselves with this new release of the Student Degree Audit. We encourage all students to review these resources: 

• Instructions for Using the Academic Planner for Arts & Sciences BA/BS Students
• Instructions for Using the Schedule Builder

Who's on My Advising Team?

Meet the SMFA Advising Team