When you hear the name Harvard University, the first thing that comes to mind is usually medicine, law, business or engineering. Though Harvard is undeniably known for producing some of the greatest minds in these fields, its studies go beyond the realms of math, science and logic to include the more creative as well.
The Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) at Harvard University offers courses to both undergraduate and graduate students in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, design, film, video and photography as well as theory and history classes in the different types of practical arts. VES concentrators (a Harvardism for majors) choose to focus on a more specific track–Studio Art, Film or Video Production, Film Studies or Environmental Studies–once admitted to the department.
For graduate students, VES offers a Ph.D. program in Film and Visual Studies as well as a secondary graduate program in the field of Film and Visual Studies for any student enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, contingent upon the approval of their specific department director of graduate studies.
In addition to film, Harvard features a multitude of practices in the Arts such as Architecture, Creative Writing, Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. In Fact, Fox’s hit show “The Simpsons” has a strong connection to the school as half of the show’s current and past writers went to Harvard.
Despite its notorious reputation for producing Pulitzer winners in the sciences, Harvard is paving its way as a heavy hitter in the Fine Arts as well. Like any distinguished school, film-related or not, the university has produced its fair share of modern day celebrities. Among the many Hollywood elite, Harvard alumni include Stockhard Channing, Rashida Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, John Lithgow, B.J. Novak, Conan O’Brien, Natalie Portman, Peter Sellars, Mira Sorvino and Steve Zahn.
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