Experiential Learning in Arts Management
Learn By Doing.
You won't just study arts management - you'll practice it.
At Carnegie Mellon's Master of Arts Management (MAM) program, experiential learning isn't an addition to your education - it's how you learn. From your first semester through graduation, you'll apply what you learn in the classroom through internships, capstone projects, industry speakers, conferences, study trips, research opportunities, and professional networking experiences.
Real Clients. Real Impact.
You won't just study arts management - you'll practice it.
As a Master of Arts Management student, you'll complete a team-based consulting project for a real client. Working with museums, performing arts organizations, cultural nonprofits, foundations, and other arts organizations, you'll apply the management, analytical, and leadership skills you've developed in the classroom to solve complex challenges facing the cultural sector. During your capstone experience, you will learn to navigate ambiguity, collaborate with a team, analyze data, and develop practical recommendations that create lasting value for the organization.
The video below highlights capstone projects from across Heinz College programs.
Recent Capstone Clients
- The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
- The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
- Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
- Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
- National Theatre Institute/Eugene O'Neill Center
- globalFEST
- Rivers of Steel Arts
- Phillips Connection
- Pittsburgh Opera
- Carnegie Museum of Art
- Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
- Jacob's Pillow Dance
- Mattress Factory Museum
- American Alliance of Museums
- Arts Ed Collaborative
Their report was packed with so much research, including community interviews and quantitative data. I still refer back to it now when I’m writing grant proposals or we are doing strategic planning.
Jody Guy
Founder and Director, Center for Civic Arts | Capstone Client
Arts Management Summer Internships
This video highlights internships from all the degree programs at Heinz College.
A required full-time ten-week summer internship is one of the defining experiences of the Master of Arts Management program. Throughout your first year, you will receive individualized career advising and be introduced to our nationwide network of alumni and employer partners to help you find and secure your Summer Internship.
MAM students have interned with leading organizations including the Guggenheim Museum, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Aspen Music Festival and School, The Glimmerglass Festival, Chautauqua Institution, the Smithsonian Institution, and New York City Center. For many students, the internship becomes the first step toward a full-time career in the arts.
Academic Year Professional Experience
Throughout the academic year, many MAM students gain paid professional experience while taking classes. Pittsburgh's vibrant arts community provides opportunities to work with internationally recognized organizations such as The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. On campus, MAM students also serve as paid MAM–College of Fine Arts Fellows, working alongside faculty and administrators in Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama, School of Music, and School of Art.
Whether you're working in one of Pittsburgh's leading cultural institutions or embedded within one of the nation's top arts schools, you'll continue building your professional skills, expanding your network, and applying what you learn in the classroom to real organizational challenges. Combined with your required summer internship, most MAM students graduate with two or more significant professional experiences at the top of their résumé.
Networking and Industry Trips
Your classroom extends far beyond campus. Through guest speakers, conferences, industry visits, and cohort travel, you'll build relationships with arts leaders while gaining firsthand insight into the organizations shaping the cultural sector. Signature experiences include Network New York and cohort trips to Washington, D.C., and other major arts centers.
New York City is a global center of culture and entertainment, and many Arts Management graduates complete their summer internships in NYC and/or find employment there after graduation.
Each October, Heinz College hosts a two-day career development event called "Network New York." This event, just seven weeks into the first semester of the program, gives our students their first opportunity to network with potential internship sponsors and to participate in business seminars with leadership from fine and performing arts organizations, museums, producers, exhibitors, and more.
We typically go on-site to meet with professionals at various institutions, including the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Whitney Museum of American Art, and many others. In recent years, Network New York has featured networking, panels, and events with industry experts from:
- Brooklyn Academy of Music
- Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
- The Public Theater
- Carnegie Hall
- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Guggenheim Museum
- New York Foundation for the Arts
- KPMG
- Capacity Interactive
- UNIX Gallery
- James Cohan Gallery
- International Society for the Performing Arts
- New York Live Arts
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- David Zwirner Gallery
- Asia Society
- Doris Duke Center for Islamic Art
Throughout your time in the MAM program, you'll engage with leaders from across the arts and cultural sector through guest lectures, seminars, and alumni panels. These conversations provide firsthand insight into a wide range of career paths, leadership styles, and current issues shaping the field. More than classroom presentations, these events are opportunities to build your professional network. You're encouraged to connect with speakers whose work inspires you, and many students develop mentoring relationships, internship opportunities, and lasting professional connections through these experiences.
Recent seminar and course guest speakers have included:
- Aubrey Bergauer, Arts Management Consultant, Author and Speaker
- Chiho Feindler, Sr. Director of Programs and Policy, VH1 Save the Music Foundation
- Jill Robinson, President and CEO, TRG Arts
- Danielle Linzer, Curator of Education & Interpretation, Andy Warhol Museum / Whitney Museum of American Art
- David Baile, Executive Director, International Society for the Performing Arts
- Julie Burros, Chief of Arts & Culture, City of Boston
- Zeyba Rahman, Senior Program Officer, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for Islamic Art
- Glenn Lowry, Director, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Each year, we sponsor a number of Arts Management students to attend prominent arts management and leadership conferences, including:
- Americans for the Arts
- American Alliance of Museums
- Association of Performing Arts Presenters
- Dance USA
- Museums and the Web
AMT LAB: Arts Management & Technology Laboratory
Widely considered an asset to the field of arts management as a whole, AMT Lab is a Carnegie Mellon University Arts Management research center serving as an exchange, a catalyst for innovative ideas, and a conduit for knowledge circulating at the intersection of arts, management, and technology.
Each year, many of our students work within AMT Lab as paid researchers and contributors. These positions offer many opportunities for publication, dialogue with practitioners, and exposure to the latest innovations in arts technology.
AMT Lab provides current and future arts managers, technologists, and researchers with existing best practices and emerging technologies that allow for a direct impact on their work and their organization. AMT Lab is a resource that leads to innovative, effective, and efficient integration of technology in the cultural and creative enterprise space.
