The New School is a private, avant-garde university based in Greenwich, New York City, and founded in 1919. In 1933, its graduate school became the University in Exile - a haven for scholars fleeing anti-intellectual regimes such as fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. For these reasons, as well as due to a conflict at Columbia University in New York, the school is associated with outstanding figures such as economist Thorstein Veblen, psychologist Erich Fromm, political philosopher Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss and philosopher Hans Jonas.
The New School’s uniqueness comes from the combination between a world-famous design school - Parsons School of Design - with a highly regarded liberal arts college - Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and College of Performing Arts as well as renowned graduate programmes.
The university puts emphasis on the collaboration between journalists with designers, architects with social researchers, media specialists with activists, poets with musicians. The schools are based in New York City, Paris, Shanghai, and Mumbai.
Its 135 undergraduate and graduate degree programmes cover art and design, social science, liberal arts, management and public policy, media, and performing arts. As a student, you have the freedom to design your own course and specialise later on. Courses available include Hip Hop: Skill, Style, Science, Origins of the Crisis in the Eurozone, Urban Environmental Health, Heterodox Identities, Punk and Noise, Games 101.
Some outstanding alumni include fashion designer Donna Karan, actor Bradley Cooper, jazz drummer Ali Jackson, designer Marc Jacobs, Ana Oliveira, President of New York Women’s Foundation, actor Marlon Brando (attended for one year), opera singer Frederica von Stade, Chief Creative Officer at Google Robert Wong, advertising executive Richard Silverstein and Jeanine Liburd, Executive Vice President at Black Entertainment Television.
