If you’re an undergraduate student in Asbury University’s School of Communication Arts, you can take advantage of a special +Grad program. This program allows students to finish their undergraduate degree and then earn a Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting (42 graduate credit hours) in as little as two additional years.
Earning a graduate degree has become an increasingly important way to set oneself apart in the job market. An M.F.A. degree demonstrates that you have advanced training in screenwriting and serves as a terminal degree for those in academia. Asbury University’s M.F.A. program has been specifically designed to equip you with the skills needed to be a successful media professional in today’s ever-changing world. The program can be completed entirely online (with the exception of the seminar in Los Angeles), so you can live anywhere in the world and even work a full-time job while completing your graduate degree.
In order to enter the +Grad program for the M.F.A. in Screenwriting, you will need to have a GPA of 3.0 or higher and will need to have completed the MC 302 Single Camera Production class (or its equivalent). Upon being accepted to the +Grad program, you will be allowed to take up to 9 hours of graduate courses during your senior year. This means you’ll only have 33 hours left in the M.F.A. program after undergraduate degree completion.
Asbury has substantially lowered the cost of graduate tuition in order to help students earn valuable graduate degrees, but graduate courses taken during your senior year will add no cost to your undergraduate tuition. This means you can complete 20% of the M.F.A. program without paying extra tuition! In order to take graduate courses during your senior year, you must maintain at least 12 hours of undergraduate courses per semester, and graduate courses taken as part of the +Grad program cannot be counted towards your undergraduate degree.
Asbury also offers an M.F.A. in Film/TV Production and an M.A. in Digital Storytelling. Like the M.F.A. in Screenwriting, the M.F.A. in Film/TV Production requires 42 credit hours and can be completed within two years after completion of undergraduate studies. The M.A. in Digital Storytelling, however, requires only 30 credit hours and therefore can be completed in as little as one extra year.