Be Treated as a Professional as You Become One
On the first day of class, our programs instantly immerse you in your art and present a world of opportunity that goes way beyond textbooks and tests. At George Mason University, we create artistic professionals ready to work upon graduation.
We Take a Hands-On Approach
You'll take practical courses designed to prepare you for the high demands of your craft while keeping your unique needs in mind. This hands-on approach allows you to experience the arts for yourself. Programs also provide incredible opportunities to take you out of the conventional classroom and into the community and even around the world. From day one, you'll make your mark at George Mason.
Can't wait to get started? You don't have to—you can do any of the following and more:
- join an ensemble
- write a screenplay for a movie
- audition for a theater role
- dance in professionally produced performances
- produce professional artwork for clients
- get to work backstage in a play, or
- join an organization from the time you walk onto campus.
From master classes to internships, portfolio and audition training to off-campus work partnerships and entrepreneurship-based courses, you'll have access to experiences that will make your résumé sing. Students who take advantage of these opportunities discover they're qualified for many fulfilling careers, whether they follow a traditional path or blaze their own trails.
Two George Mason Film students, Emma Davenport and Aryaman Kantawala, and one alumnus, Khubab Hassan ('23), were selected as winners of the 2025 Filmfest DC Trailer Competition. Each winner’s trailer was shown on the big screen during Filmfest DC in April/May, posted on their website homepage, and in television advertising. They will also be acknowledged in the Festival catalog.
Congratulations to our School of Art graphic design majors, Chanel Christy and Jonãi Sheppard, who are 2025 Graphic Design USA Students to Watch in the February issue. The annual GDUSA feature is seen by 50,000+ art directors, designers, students and educators in the printed magazine and online. Students from the top art and design schools nationwide are featured each year.
One of the Chosen Few
School of Dance student Kalen Simpson was one of only a handful of students to be awarded a fellowship at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 2024. Kalen shares a few of his takeaways from the experience dancing with the company last fall.
In February 2025, Arts Management student ('26) and George Mason staff member Rachelle Etienne-Robinson co-curated a New York show at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery called Black Dress II: Homage, which celebrates a history of black fashion in America. With hopes of a potential tour or permanent space, Adrienne Jones (who created the original show 10 years before) and Etienne-Robinson see the current exhibition not as an end-point, but as the next step in their journey.
Four CVPA students have their original animations displayed on screens in six Metro stations in D.C. as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Art in Transit Program. These animations will be on rotation in the stations for a full year but this is part of a longer 5-year partnership. Art student, Joseph Cameron Rhodes Murdock, says of his animation, The Magnificent Pixie Titans and the Workshop Varmint, “In this animation, the Wessel, a small creature who loves shiny objects and getting into mischief, breaks into a magic workshop and wreaks havoc....My greatest joy is to create inhabitants of worlds, not just creatures that look cool but ones that have purpose."
Ali Coburn poses at Atlas Theater in Washington, D.C. where she works throughout the year. Arts Management major and rising senior Alexandra “Ali” Coburn loves working on and off the stage. In 2023, she was needing to complete volunteer hours for the Intro to Arts Management course and Erin Feng, the executive director of Capital City Symphony offered her an internship. Coburn’s responsibilities include creating content for their social media pages, various writing assignments, and designing their quarterly newsletter. Coburn designed the company’s first newsletter in five years.
Film and Video Studies major Jacques Lykes interned at House Creative Services, Chief Administrative Officer at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C. Ron Aira/Creative Services/George Mason University
Film and Video Studies major Sami Saab interned at DC Camera.
At the 2024 Best of Film at George Mason showcase, senior Film student screened his music video, The Show, which he directed for rapper Bobby Feeno, also known as former NFL running back Arian Foster. Bah, who was a content creator and uploading his own videos, met Foster when they were both streaming on the platform Twitch, and made a cameo appearance in the video. In 2024, Bah was the moderator for Professor Nikyatu Jusu’s film Nanny at George Mason’s Visiting Filmmakers Series. Bah's senior thesis project, The Lick, is about the challenges of growing up in Southeast D.C.
Veteran and MFA student uses healing power of art to help veterans
The traumatic experiences that School of Art MFA student and veteran Steven Luu has suffered in his life fuels Luu’s mission to help other veterans navigate their own trauma—a mission he pursues with deep purpose and gratitude for the opportunity. He creates art with a focus on mental health and uses his story to encourage others to find their own form of expression.
Learn more about Steven Luu's mission and his Chicago exhibition
Dance student (BFA, '26) Sydney Heldman was sought after by Beyond the Barre Cincinnati, Ohio to create four original solos for Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), all while a student at George Mason School of Dance. In school she has taken part in residencies with Doug Varone and Dancers and Shaun Boyle D’Arcy, and has choreographed two student works on George Mason dancers—Worthy is the Lamb and Kokomo. When not in class she has been in various summer intensives such as Ballet BC, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, and GagaLab, where she has absorbed a wide variety of repertoire that continues to influence and inspire her own work.
In early 2025, School of Art students in a publication design course had the opportunity to design book covers for a novel that is being published by the university’s Stillhouse Press, an independent small publisher affiliated with the English Department.
Four CVPA students have their original animations displayed on screens in six Metro stations in D.C. as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Art in Transit Program. These animations will be on rotation in the stations for a full year but this is part of a longer 5-year partnership. Computer Game Design student, Valeria Hunt, said of her animation: "My stop-motion cut-out animation, Man with the Suitcase, portrays moments from everyday life that many people can relate to....Man with the Suitcase is about daily struggles, with a touch of humor to help us get through the day."
In the Fall of 2023, George Mason University Master of Art Teaching student, Emely Ramos, painted a 209 ft long x 7 ft tall mural featuring a series of iconic women throughout different periods of fashion for Tysons Corner Center, called Icons of Fashion. These notable figures are displayed in a runway format to showcase their memorable outfits. Tysons is the most "high-profile" client Murals at Mason has worked with so far, and the commission was only Emely's second (and the largest) mural she has done so far.
In the summer of 2022, senior Sonja Phillips-Thomas (Film and Music double major), interned at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington D.C.
In November 2022, senior Painting major Katherine Ashby was commissioned by Gunston Hall to create life-size portraits of George Mason IV and other people who lived at Gunston Hall, including some of the people held in slavery there.
Current Master's of Music Composition student Christopher Bell won the 2025 Commencement Fanfare Competition for his piece, Memory Cascades. Christopher's new work will be premiered at George Mason's 2025 Commencement Exercises at Eagle Bank Arena on May 15, 2025. Christopher's works have been performed by LOAM, The Orchestra Now, Viano Quartet, George Miller, Joanne Evans, to name a few.
Four CVPA students have their original animations displayed on screens in six Metro stations in D.C. as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Art in Transit Program. These animations will be on rotation in the stations for a full year but this is part of a longer 5-year partnership. School of Art student, Taka Hunter, says of his animation: “Ichi Nichi (One Day) is a short piece made up of day-to-day moments....If there’s anything I want to achieve with Ichi Nichi, it’s to make someone feel seen.”
Art students at Mason Korea have self-published their own children's books as part of the Graphic Design Methods and Principles course project taught by Dr. Miriam Ahmed.
Four CVPA students have their original animations displayed on screens in six Metro stations in D.C. as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) Art in Transit Program. These animations will be on rotation in the stations for a full year but this is part of a longer 5-year partnership. School of Art student, Jennifer Perez, says of her work, "Stardust Playground is a fantastical, loose reimagining of a childhood memory of a family trip to a swimming pool....These free-spirited animal characters joyfully play in zero gravity."
Ying Wang designed an augmented reality (AR) game as part of an independent study project in George Mason's Computer Game Design Program. She developed the concept and created 2D and 3D child-friendly animated characters. Wang, who was a student in Director Sang Nam’s GAME 399 Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Design course in Fall 2020, said she’s proud to see her app come to fruition, and she encourages children to do their own part to overcome this pandemic by following the simple steps featured in her app.
For the second year running, George Mason students, faculty, and staff of the CVPA Green Machine Ensembles played in front of the White House at the annual Easter Egg Roll on April 1, 2024.
Arts Management graduate students assist George Mason's Campus Curator for Mason Exibitions, Don Russell, with the installation Migratory Aesthetics in the Gillespie Gallery of Art.
George Mason student Mirella Guzman-Escobar, studying Graphic Design at the School of Art, interned at House Creative Services, Chief Administrative Officer at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington D.C.