The MA in Sound Design provides students with focused studio training in sound design, digital audio workstations, and industry standard practices in creating sonic worlds for visual media. Emphasis is placed on creative sound design techniques, and editorial practices in layering sounds in synchronization with visual media.

The MA in Music Scoring & Composition provides students with focused training in music composition and production workflows, digital audio workstations, virtual instruments, and industry standard practices in music scoring for visual media. Building on a foundation of musicianship, students will learn contemporary scoring techniques which provide the necessary skills for success in changing music industry. Emphasis is placed on creating emotion through music, MIDI orchestration, and synchronization with visual media.

Educational Theatre, Storytelling and the arts, M.A. is designed for educators without a theatre major interested in integrating dramatic play into their coursework. This program offers a rich array of multi-disciplinary courses in arts education, focusing on creative dramatics and storytelling.

The Master of Arts in Music degree is intended to allow talented musicians who have completed an undergraduate degree in music to pursue intensive graduate studies in performance. The Master of Arts in Music degree is offered with applied concentrations in piano, organ, voice, contemporary pop music, orchestral instruments, composition, conducting, church music, and contemporary Christian music.

Any music school can make you a better player. Our interconnected courses are built to transform you intellectually, artistically, professionally, and individually. You’ll understand the roots of your music, freeing you to take it somewhere new. You’ll see how your training broadens your options, rather than narrowing them. You'll find your voice. And you'll enter the world with the same confidence you bring to the stage.

The Film MFA programs—in Screenwriting & Directing and in Creative Producing, recently joined by Writing for Film and Television—are among the world's premiere training grounds for emerging filmmakers. Since the Film MFA at Columbia began in 1966, it has been renowned for the global success of its alumni, including top prizes at the Oscar and Emmy Awards as well as yearly accolades at Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Telluride, and more.

Columbia University has the distinction of being the first university in the United States to recognize the importance of Film Studies as an academic discipline, back when Victor Freeburg launched the Photoplay Composition class in 1915. Today, we remain committed to a pedagogy that considers the vanguard of change as moving-image media continue to evolve into the present. But we also explore what cinema has been historically as both an American and an international sociocultural phenomenon. Students in our program learn from a world-class faculty while living in one of the leading cities for film research and filmgoing.

Columbia University’s MFA Theatre Program is collaborative, international, and interdisciplinary. It defines itself by its location in New York City. It thrives on the extensive network of Columbia alumni and faculty who work in prestigious theatres at every level, who direct and perform in award-winning productions, and who engage with our students far beyond the classroom.

Any music school can make you a better player. Our interconnected courses are built to transform you intellectually, artistically, professionally, and individually. You’ll understand the roots of your music, freeing you to take it somewhere new. You’ll see how your training broadens your options, rather than narrowing them. You'll find your voice. And you'll enter the world with the same confidence you bring to the stage.