Woodworking & Furniture Design

FAQs

• What are some of the career paths for someone who majors in Woodworking & Furniture Design?

  Our students have become employed in a range of disciplines such as lead designers in high-end cabinetry firms and private jet interiors based in NYC and Portland, ME. They have also continued their education at the graduate level in some of the most respected universities in this country within the design field. In addition, students have taken up residency at various artist-in-residence programs across the country and ultimately established their own studio practices and even become university faculty within this discipline.

• How do you prepare your students for the real world?

  We think of their entire experience as real world preparation. Our students learn a significant skill set that can be applied to many methods of construction and problem solving. Their experiences in the classroom such as client-based presentations (model making, budgeting and prototyping), maintaining a heightened level of craft and consistently upholding a rigorous work ethic help prepare them to excel in many exciting endeavors after their tenure at MECA.

• What are the prerequisites to major in Woodworking & Furniture Design? 

  Completed Foundations year, Introduction to Woodworking & Furniture Design and one of many woodworking elective courses such as Curviture (designing and making with bent wood), Design: A Sustainable Approach or Multiplicity (designing for small production)

• What unique skills do your students get? 

  Our students obtain a particular skill set that allows them to comfortably and safely operate in a studio that involves heavy machinery and construct on a human scale. The independency that they have in the studio provides them with the confidence to successfully maintain a fully functioning wood studio. 

• Will I able to incorporate other media or interests with my work as a Woodworking & Furniture Design major? 

  Yes. We have students utilize other materials that they are experiencing at MECA such as clay, metal and digital technologies within their work. In fact, it's a requirement for all students within our introduction course to include a secondary material other than wood into their project in order to help understand the properties of wood movement and to problem solve through connections. 

• What are some classes offered in your department? 

  Introduction through Advanced Woodworking & Furniture Design. Sustainable design approaches. Wood bending. Designing for small production (working in multiples). Site specific/client based designing & making. Designing and making with the CNC router.

• What are the faculty like? 

  Faculty are diverse, hard working, contemporary practicing artists that bring a calm yet rigorous approach to teaching. The faculty are young but offer a broad resume in teaching and art making. 

• What are your facilities like? 

  MECA offers a state-of-the-art wood studio that includes precision Italian machinery, CNC routers and every hand-tool needed for working in wood. We provide Lie Nielsen hand planes, Festool hand tools are equipped with two Saw Stop table saws. 

• What are some examples of internships your students have done in the past? 

  Students consistently intern for private art and woodworking studios, public art projects and large companies within the industry such as Mark Richey Woodworking. 

• How many students (juniors and seniors) do you typically have in your major?

  6 juniors & 6 seniors