MCAD emphasizes a collaborative process and working with students from all majors. For this Bachelor of Science degree, you will take courses in several different areas, including a core focus, adding up to 121 total credits required for graduation.
Required Courses - These are the core courses that every Creative Entrepreneurship student takes.
Foundation Studies - These classes help you become a well-versed student; they help you build a solid art background.
Electives - Throughout your studies you can choose from numerous studio electives that give you hands-on creative time. These classes round out your experience at MCAD; they deepen your creative practice or fulfill studio and non-studio requirements for a minor.
Humanities and Sciences Electives - These classes round out your experience at MCAD, deepen your creative practice, and fulfill non-studio requirements for a degree.
Learning Outcomes
This course is an introduction to the history and contemporary scope of the global creative economy and its basic economic principles. Students will examine and discuss the impact of arts, design, and culture on the global economy and its contributions to standards of living, well-being, and other economic(s) parameters. The course will also be an in-depth introduction to concepts and applications of "value-based economics" and "economies for a common good". Students will examine how these approaches to economic growth and well-being reframe "standard" economics, and how they can be applied to building sustainable arts- and culture-based businesses and economies. This course fulfills a Liberal Arts–Social Science or Liberal Arts elective requirement for BFA students.
The ideation and creation of new enterprises, whether to satisfy a need or solve a problem, is a fundamentally bold, often risky act, and this class seeks to address the creation of arts-based businesses from both a self-development and interdisciplinary perspective. This course explores the meaning, value, and valuation of the products, services, or experiences we make for others as solo artists and designers or in collaboration. It covers the crafting of a business concept and the writing of a business plan based on self-employment. It introduces students to the risks, demands, utility, and aesthetics of new business ideas and the implementation of new business in a legal process. In a studio setting, students examine various types of arts- and design-related companies and the associated issues, as well as key character and personal development aspects of freelancing, self-employment, building a business, and growing a business operation. Through case studies, hands-on projects, and working with business mentors from the art and design world, students learn all the elements of setting up a successful business enterprise. This course fulfills studio elective credits for BFA students.
Being a self-employed artist and running a creative business requires proficiency in several areas of financial literacy, such as the time value of money, compound interest, managing debt, and financial planning. This course addresses how students can position themselves as artists and designers who create value for others and how they participate in the art market. It teaches students about the day-to-day operations of being self-employed. It introduces them to the broad responsibilities of running a small business, from the valuation of their work to bookkeeping and other routine activities. It helps them practice various quantitative skills, from calculating interest on investments to the financial valuation of their business based on multiple quantitative parameters. Students will also learn how to scale or grow a business and consider the various financial options to support this process, from loans to investments to the eventual sale of their business. This course fulfills a Liberal Arts–Scientific and Quantitative Reasoning or Liberal Arts elective requirement for BFA students.
Funding creative ventures requires developing proposals that are clearly, concisely, and persuasively written. This course covers the essential skills needed for effective proposal writing in creative and commercial settings. Students concept, write, and revise project proposals using grant templates, crowdfunding platforms, and proposal documents as references. Through case studies, students examine various funding channels, then develop project proposals with matching budget projections that are delivered through writing and presentations.
Creative entrepreneurship can be a solo or team effort, and this course is designed as a capstone experience to allow students to showcase their entrepreneurial skill set, either as solopreneurs or with a team project. Students will conduct targeted research and work on an entrepreneurial project or business concept from start to finish during a semester-long experiential learning setting guided by an instructor. They will present the findings of their work to a public audience. This course can be taken as a standalone or concurrently with ES 4701. Prerequisite: BS or BFA junior or senior status or approval of instructor.
Key to the creative and critical growth of the engaged, successful artist is participation in a culture of writing and inquiry. Students in this course focus on the kinds of writing they will encounter and produce in their coursework at MCAD and as creative professionals. Regular writing workshops allow students to concentrate on experiential and practical approaches to writing. Students explore a variety of texts and objects through class assignments, and then develop clear compelling essays employing a variety of rhetorical and narrative strategies.
Data permeates our everyday lives, whether we see it or not. This course will help you understand the data in our lives and how to communicate it visually in engaging ways. It covers techniques of designing data visualization and infographics to creatively put data into context. Students develop visual literacy and explore the history, theory, and methods for graphical information presentations. Experience in Adobe Illustrator is helpful.
This course introduces the art and science of persuasion and its relationship to contemporary marketing practices. Students will learn the principles of persuasion, discuss the ethics of overt and subliminal persuasion techniques, and practice the applications of these principles and techniques in a client-based setting. Modern marketing and influencing rely on trust-building, transparency, reputation-building techniques, and the evocation of emotions as well as appeals to reason. Students will explore the creation of persuasive language and visuals in marketing campaigns and apply them in their work with clients.
This course is a study of modern management techniques and systems needed to execute a project from start to finish, to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, quality, time and budgetary cost, to the equal satisfaction of those involved. Relevant speakers, technical readings/discussions, and practical work on concurrent projects underway elsewhere in the curriculum prepare students for responsible and successful project planning and navigation in their careers.
This course concerns itself with the great variety and the interdependence of species that live on this planet. Students discuss just how species evolve and grow and how they die and become extinct. Change over time in living organisms is a major theme of this course. Class sessions are primarily lecture-based with some discussion. Assignments include examinations and short essays. In addition, a biodiversity field trip gives students practical experience in observing the living and the interactive cycle of one species. This course fulfills the Scientific and Quantitative Reasoning requirement for Humanities and Sciences.
This course explores the power of the spoken word. Students integrate the voice with visual communication utilized on social media platforms, the internet, TV, radio, and so forth, and attend recording studio sessions with professional voiceover talent. Students write various pieces for the voice and attain the skills necessary to develop any audio broadcast assignment from concept stage through final air-quality production without supervision.
Futurism, as an artistic and scientific movement, broadly speculates about the future. Futurism became popular in the early 20th century and was appropriated by architects, designers, painters, and other people associated with the avant-garde movement. Eventually, futurism extended to other areas of social and scientific inquiry and was later adopted by consulting companies and others that mainly deal with the prediction of conflicts and their consequences. Today's futurism is represented by groups of people who study and attempt to predict global aesthetic and technological trends. The formal study of the future includes foresight, strategy, and perspective awareness. Successful futurologists use trend, precursor, and scenario analyses in their prospecting. This course explores the scientific, technological, and social forces that shape the natural and human-made environment of the future as they impact society, life, and work. Thinking in systems, students research the existing state of the global environment to develop long-term forecasts for the future.
This course assists junior- and senior-level students in preparing for and finding their career paths. Students explore techniques to land their dream job, develop creative resumes, create and update professional portfolios, and gain experience networking in order to broaden their professional connections. Students explore processes around personal branding, social media best practices, marketing their unique skills, and talking about who they are and what they do. This course is for students who are concentrating on finding a job with an organization as well as those who are creating their own job in the creative economy.
Service design is the practice of tying together human, digital, and physical interactions to create differentiated and unique environments for people participating in an experience. Such experiences can be art exhibitions, touristic and recreational activities, medical interventions, or human-technology interfaces of various kinds (AR/VR). At the core of this class is the science behind how people react to, enjoy, or reject certain experiences that require interactions with other human beings, technology, or nature. Delivering great experiences and services can be challenging, but design thinking can help you understand people's needs, look at interactions between people, and constantly iterate your way forward to create more unique and immersive experiences. Service is where your project meets the world. Learn to design moments that people will remember and value. This course fulfills studio elective credits for BFA students.
Creativity inspires innovative problem solving. This course explores the conditions of innovation and examines technological advances and the social and cultural conditions needed for innovations to be adopted. Students ideate innovations to solve problems large and small while considering social and environmental impacts. Students’ projects demonstrate the power of innovative thinking and its application to create change.
We are surrounded by data. In nature, we can see inherent rhythms that can be appreciated numerically. We all use data literacy throughout our daily lives and to understand creative practice. This course uncovers the process of gathering and analyzing data from known sample sets such as websites, market research, government agencies, and more. Students will explore the theory of analytics, identify data sources, and practice the methods of visualizing data in various contexts, including applications in communications, marketing, and as applied in creative practice. This course fulfills a Liberal Arts – Scientific and Quantitative Reasoning or Liberal Arts elective requirement for BFA students.
This course merges the artistry of theater with the demands of entrepreneurship to help students develop powerful presentation and persuasion skills. By exploring the history of theater as a form of entrepreneurial enterprise, students discover how acting principles—such as voice control, physical presence, and emotional engagement—can be leveraged in delivering high-impact pitches. Through hands-on exercises, improvisation, and peer feedback, participants learn to craft compelling stories, conquer stage fright, and captivate their audiences. The ultimate goal is to transform each student’s personal narrative into a pitch that resonates with clients, investors, or collaborators while honoring the rich lineage of theatrical innovation. This course fulfills studio elective credits for BFA students.
No other technology has affected creativity, the arts, and business as rapidly as artificial intelligence (AI). Comprehension and fluency in Generative AI (GenAI) tools are fast becoming necessary for a diversity of entrepreneurs and content creators. This course introduces students to the verbal and visual GenAI landscape, including ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Runway, and other platforms, to build fluency while interrogating the promises and pitfalls of these technologies. We'll focus on critically understanding and leveraging these tools within the context of building a creative business and/or guiding an artistic journey. This course also addresses how new AI technology may produce bias and impact transparency, privacy, security, intellectual property rights, and other regulatory and compliance issues.
This course introduces the creation and maintenance of valued workplace environments that promote employee and group health and wellbeing through an equity lens. Students explore the science of mind-body medicine and resiliency, and identify the role of employment and employer conditions on individual and societal health. Drawing on examples from start-ups, established businesses, corporations, and nonprofit organizations, students examine new models of organizational management and their impact on employee health and engagement. Students learn how to address implicit bias and discriminatory practices and their negative impact on workplace health.
Case studies and client work focus on the establishment of rules and standards for ethical behaviors in the workplace and explore how people should be treated in the office and how different situations should be handled.
This course provides a capstone experience for creative entrepreneurship students and prepares them for launching their own creative projects or businesses. Students are introduced to professional networking events and practices, as well as co-working spaces that allow them to showcase their work. Students are introduced to business incubation and acceleration programs across the United States and beyond, giving them access to potential capital, sponsors, and investors for their creative project. This course includes opportunities to participate in events hosted by Twin Cities accelerator and incubator programs, as well as several networking events, one of which the students will organize themselves.
Designed exclusively for first-year students, this 2-credit course offers an abundance of resources that get you started on the right foot at MCAD. It helps new students feel a sense of community with other first-year classmates; navigate the college and course offerings; learn time-management skills; and understand how as an artist, designer, or entrepreneur positively influences others. The First-Year Experience course gives you access to amazing faculty who understand how to make a successful life transition in college.
FDN 1000: First-year Experience: Communities of Practice
This 2-credit course at a glance:
Foundation: 2D is an introduction to creative thinking that develops students’ skills in research, observation, interpretation, and self-expression. An emphasis is placed on exploring new ways to read and see the world, as well as new ways to report on it. Students learn basic two-dimensional principles through the use of various media, tools, materials, and processes. As a result, students develop a visual and verbal language for analyzing, organizing, shaping, and communicating two-dimensional form and meaning.
Foundation: Drawing 1 is an introductory drawing course designed to prepare students for study in all majors of the college. Students develop basic drawing skills, including the ability to perceive and express visual relationships, organize a two-dimensional composition, and depict and manipulate form, space, and light. Students work from direct observation of still life, interior space, and landscape.
Students are introduced to digital resources at MCAD while exploring digital media. Areas covered include the Service Bureau, Gray Studio, and Media Center, along with other digital resources. Students use a variety of software and hardware to learn the basics of working with recorded media, including video, sound, and photography, as well as developing critical language for discussing media and media artists.
This course serves as an introduction to an interdisciplinary mode of working within media arts. Students will learn technical skills in lens-based practices such as filmmaking and photography, basic audio recording, and coding-based creative practices. Students will engage with editing and production tools, and create artworks engaged in observation, critical analysis, and conceptual thinking. Projects will engage the materiality unique to each media. Emphasis is placed on techniques that cross and combine media to create rich experiences and artworks.
Everything we make has its beginning as an idea, which takes form as an artist/designer makes a series of decisions to guide its creative evolution. This course is designed to help students explore the development of new ideas and their own process of making. Students also create visual tools to track their creative process from idea through construction and then to post production analysis. The course consists of discussions, critiques, exercises, and visual logs.
Students in the Bachelor of Science program take 3 studio electives of their choice.
Theses courses are intended for students to deepen creative practice, fulfill studio and non-studio requirements for a minor. Students may elect up to 18 credits of studio or non-studio electives and/or up to 6 credits in internships in the area.