Courses and Academic Structure

Semester Program Curriculum

Each semester, students enroll in one mandatory Course taught in English for all students: Life and Culture in Mexico (3 credits)

Students then choose 3-4 Art Courses taught in English in the School of Art & Design that are also populated by regular degree-seeking UDEM students. 

The following list of courses are examples of classes that have been offered. They exact list of classes for the semester will be distributed to students prior to registration and changes from year to year.

• Drawing, Time, and Space: (3 credits) This is a lower-level, introductory-level course typically taken in the second semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to apply the technical and theoretical knowledge of drawing and its applications in the production of works of art, the importance of observation, measurement, proportion, shape and volume in different techniques and materials, as well as the supports for the drawing and its conservation, through the academic exercise of representation of the natural drawing and the human figure.
• Roughing and Assembling: (3 credits) This is a lower-level, introductory-level course typically taken in the second semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to make a sculpture by subtracting material, roughing, as well as the production of a sculpture by assembling or adding material.
• Flexible Workshop: (3 credits)  This is an intermediate-level course typically taken in the fifth semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to break down the traditional structure of the academic exercise, experiment with making decisions relevant to the student’s production, to discover processes, characteristics and methodologies that allow establishing the basis of an artistic practice.
• Self-Directed Workshop: (3 credits)  This is an intermediate-level course typically taken in the sixth semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to create a product from the approach of a personal project, reflect on the implications of conceiving, developing and clearly carrying out their own artistic project and presenting the results of an artistic project to an audience.
• Production Workshop: (6 credits)  This is an advanced-level course typically taken in the seventh semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to clearly project the intentions, needs, and processes of their artistic production; this through the investigation of ideas, processes and references relevant to their artistic practice, in order to assess their own research, production and exhibition processes in a critical and professional manner. 
• Art, Discourse, and Sense: (3 credits)  This is an advanced-level course typically taken in the eighth semester of an 8-9 semester degree program.  Upon completion, the student will be able to understand what is defined by artistic discourse, as well the reasons why it arose; the typologies of discourse and the way in which it is constructed through the decoding of modern and contemporary works of art, the analysis of their complex contexts, techniques, methods, forms and contents, in order to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their own artistic discourse.
• Additional elective cultural courses (1.5 credits) as part of the UDEM general education offerings: https://www.udem.edu.mx/en/vive/difusion-cultural

The accompanying Visiting Northwest (ILACA) Professor will offer an elective art course (3 credits), delivered in English, designed to be accessible to both BFA students and liberal arts art majors and minors.  The difficulty level should be at the intermediate to upper-intermediate level.  Some spaces (TBD) will be held for UDEM students, although the majority of participants will be from the ILACA group.

Students can enroll in mostly beginner-level, graded courses from a full range of culture/artistic-oriented classes: Visual Arts, Music, Choir, Dancing, Theater, as well service-learning in the public schools.  These classes are principally delivered in Spanish, but they are regularly populated by international students with no, or low-level Spanish ability since the curriculum is experientially based, rather than relying on language-based communicative skills.  Students may also enroll in physical education courses (1.5 credits).

All student participants will receive an online Spanish language test to be taken prior to the spring semester and prior to the course registration time (roughly 2-3 months before the beginning of the spring semester).  All students will also have access to elective Spanish language classes at the basic, intermediate, and advanced levels.  These classes are all 3 credits.  Any student testing at the B2 Level or above for Spanish may avail themselves of the full range of course offerings of the entire University, including the School of Art and Design.