Busting The Myth That Fine-Arts Degrees Lead To The Poorhouse

College Majors Music Major
21

<p>I have a daughter who majored in performing arts (specifically, musical theater) and NEVER had ANY qualms about her pursuing such a major. I can’t imagine her not doing so. </p>

<p>Unlike many, I don’t really think what you major in at college matters too significantly in terms of employability. Going to college is to become educated. Educated people are needed in the work force. Many in the work force are doing jobs not directly related to their college major. Many college majors don’t necessarily have a “practical” side as well, such as anthropology, English, history, gender studies, psychology, etc. If anything, an arts major has an actual skill set beyond having an educated mind. </p>

<p>In any case, with an arts degree, it is possible to go on and do many things, either within the arts or outside the arts. But the arts do exist and somebody is going to fill those positions out there. </p>

<p>Some feel that an arts major should have a double major or minor as a “fallback.” I never cared about my kid having that and she did not. However, she has a varied skill set within the arts and can and does do many things in the field for pay beyond performing (though does that for pay too). </p>

<p>My daughter is 25 and graduated college 4.5 years ago. From graduation day forward, she has supported herself in NYC entirely through jobs in music and theater (she does more than one thing, including performing). While she may not be rolling around in the dough, she has enough to live and is still just 25. She has many friends from college in her field who are doing the same, and some are not. I’m not sure that is all that different than other young adults who majored in something else.</p>

22

<p>This is a joke. This article is scrambling to find a silver lining of a very dark cloud. The stats that it gives are flat out wrong. Unless you go to CalArts or a prestigious university for fine arts; chances are you will be flat broke. There are 10 articles for every one of these saying fine arts is one of the worse degrees to pursue. If you enjoy the arts, fine, do it on your own free time but making it into a career is very unwise unless you can rise to the top.</p>

23

<p>Redeye, people here are saying that you are not limited to a career in fine arts if that is what your major was.</p>

<p>I have posted this many times in the past, but to again give the example that music majors, as a group, have had the highest admittance rate at medical school. At the time I read that, it was 66%. Employers and admissions alike know the kind of character required to major in music.</p>

24

<p>You have to have “skillz” and an interest to be successful. But honestly, who’s parents wouldn’t freak out if their kids decide to major in East Asian Studies rather than engineering.</p>

25

<p>Chill RedEye…The life of a freelancer or entrepreneur is not for everyone. That is what fine arts really is all about. Life in a cubicle is hell for others. Ying and yang.</p>

26

<p>As far as rankings go, you never see entrepreneurs ranked for either worst pay or the best.</p>

<p>Entrepreneurs are actually both. Bill Gates and Donald Trump are entrepreneurs but so are millions of people who tried yet never broke even.</p>

<p>Fine arts is very similar in that most artists are entrepreneurs-they hustle to get gigs, audition for plays and TV and movie roles and show their portfolios to get into a gallery or billboard or magazine.</p>

<p>The investment is made first then the pay comes. It’s not a 9-5 job. Again, it’s not for everyone but can be very rewarding to ones soul if not to the wallet.</p>

27

<p>I have two d’s with fine arts degrees… one with a double undergraduate major in studio art and art history and an MFA in painting and drawing. She maintains an art studio and works in developing programs for the public at a major museum in NYC. She has taught as an adjunct and while teaching at a college level is really her goal, she understands how limited the opportunities to do so are and she does prefer the intellectually engaging museum atmosphere she is in rather than putting together several adjunct positions all over the place, none of which offer any benefits. This is her first fulltime position with health insurance, vacation and 401K and so she is liking all of that very much. Her challenge is to find time for her own studio practice as her studio is subsidized space for working artists in NYC with a commitment of at least 50 hours a month, sometimes easy to do while other times not so. She has curated group exhibits and is in the process of organizing group crits. She has just been asked to be a visiting alumnni critic at her undergrad school.</p>

<p>Younger d a double major in theater and music. She has been in shows off-Broadway, has produced her own shows and organized her own theater company, sings in a professional chorus, has perfomed in a small opera company and children’s theater. She is currently rehearsing for two different off-B’way productions, a Shakespeare production for December and a vocal performance for January. How does she make her living?? Not by any of the productions she appears in, none of which pay enough to support herself and we will still be able to cover her under our health insurance until next year. She has made most of her money since she graduated as a nanny, and teaches children’s music and movement classes, she does children’s birthday parties and she is also working on database/administration/office stuff as a temp for a cultural center which hosted the site of her recent productions. Is it easy to live this way? Not really as she is endlessly running from one part of the city to another, sometimes having to turn down paying temp jobs because of rehearsal and performance schedules. Sometimes she has to leave her apartment at 8 AM and can get home at midnight after doing several different things within the space of a day. Will she continue to be doing this 10 years from now-who knows? She has been thinking of grad school as an MFA does allow you to teach in an academic setting but she also knows how difficult it is to get accepted as an MFA student and beyond that to find any kind of academic teaching job.</p>

28

<p>My oldest daughter, 25, is a professional artist, and is very successful. She sidestepped college, and went directly to Florence Italy to study in the ateliers there, where she learned classical drawing and painting. She paints for a living, and has done well just marketing herself without galleries. She has never worked at any other job, or done any teaching, except during school, so that she could have a free studio in Florence. She now makes over $100K per year. Recently she has accepted representation in three galleries, and sells through them as well. </p>

<p>She always knew she wanted to be an artist. At first we thought she should attend college, but she was insistent already at age 15 that colleges would not teach her what she needed to learn. She has always worked very hard and been very focused. She never had a back-up plan. I’m glad we listened to her.</p>

29

<p>Interesting points of view.</p>

<p>I would support statements that fine arts are a good preparation for life, even if you don’t make it your living.</p>

<p>The only caveat is if someone who wasn’t very <em>good</em> at the arts went to an inferior school to major in art (music, theater, whatever). But they would have been poorly prepared if they majored in English or history as well. I am thinking of a friend’s child who is a senior theater major and blogged about a course in which she has to find all the nouns in a paragraph. A senior in college and she doesn’t remember exactly what a noun is! :frowning: </p>

<p>I’m thinking, "I dearly hope she gets a job in the theater b/c she doesn’t seem prepared for anything else!</p>

30

<p>Your caveat exists for all majors though. There are poor to mediocre engineers, physicians, teachers and lawyers. I would add that when these poor to mediocre professionals screw up, the impact is devastating to other people.</p>

<p>Incarceration, missing the wrong leg, uneducated students or bridge collapse are serious things. A less than highly skilled artist is forced by economics to choose a profession in which they are more suited.</p>

<p>Darwinian selection usually weeds out the poor to mediocre in the arts. In many professions, the poor to mediocre practitioners are often sheltered, coddled and strung along rather than exposed and forced out.</p>

31

<p>mommusic, yours is a good example of a student who probably won’t make it in the arts/theater. People who are outstanding in the arts are normally outstanding in other areas as well. Using the daughter I described above as an example, she scored 800 and 780 in the SAT writing and reading, took 9 AP courses in high school, all while graduating one year early from high school. She is also a self-made historian and an outstanding writer, which greatly assists her in her art profession, as she has thousands of followers on her blog. On this forum, I have learned about many young musicians who are also outstanding academic students.</p>

32

<p>woodwinds…I agree with your point in #31. My daughter who is a performing arts professional (and is now 25 like your D) also was outstanding in other areas, such as academics. She also scored high like your D on the standardized tests and graduated one year early from high school. While a performer, she is also an outstanding writer and has won many fellowships, awards, residencies and commissions for writing and didn’t even major in that. She has also taught on the college level at a very young age. I don’t think she is unique. She has plenty of performing arts friends also now out of college who work as both performers, but have other skill sets too.</p>

33

<p>The biggest life skill I think going into music/the arts can do is to teach people to not be afraid to fail. People want ‘sure things’, and they tell their kids to major in IT or engineering or pre med or whatever because they believe that is ‘safe’, which a lot of kids who major in those or in Business Admin are finding out aren’t so safe, get a CPA and find out the’re are outsourcing CPA work to India, get a Phd in biochem, find out research jobs in pharm are being done in China so they are out of luck…</p>

<p>Put it this way, you don’t become an entrepeneur or work in an entrepeneurial way if you are afraid to fail, most successful entrepeneurs have failed miserably, the zuckerbergs of the world are rare comparitively. Someone wanting safety is not going to create a new company or take risks, and in the work world the people who succeed, move up the ladder, are usually people willing to take risks, at least in successful companies and being willing to pursue a dream and risk the reality it is more likely you will ‘fail’ in your objectives, whatever they are (depending on what they are) then make it.If someone goes in with their eyes open and realize it is risky, they are learning an important life lesson.</p>

<p>The other one is in learning to recognize when it isn’t working, and trying a different approach or something else. Someone who comes out of Juilliard and thinks they are going to be a great soloist and 5 years down the road are still not getting anywhere is not what I mean, rather it is the person who says “whom, not quite working out the way I thought, what can I do” and adjusts. Could be my friend, majoring in performance at Indiana, who realized that he wasn’t getting the prime opportunities, and switched out; another guy, who went to grad school for voice, got out, found he wasn’t going where he wanted to, and is now a partner at a major investment firm; David Kim, Concertmaster of the Philadelphia orchestra, was on the soloist track, had won a top level at the tchaikovsky, found himself soloing at some small orchestra in Georgia, and realized he needed to re-evaluate…then ended up changing path, that led to his current job (obviously, he had the skills to do it, but still). </p>

<p>And that skill is recognized in the business world, the CEO of my company just gave this rah rah speech and one of the things he said was he wanted people willing to take chances, that he would never penalize someone for trying something and failing, but he would penalize someone for trying and failing, and then continuously trying to prop it up when it becomes obvious it isn’t working…something people going into the arts hopefully learn early on. </p>

<p>It has never been easy to go into the arts/music, the legend of the starving artist, the difficulty musicians and composers had, etc are often very true, it is why you have to go in with open eyes and be aware of the reality and be thinking constantly about ‘what next’. The article isn’t lying, the reality is that even people who go to places like Juilliard within 10 years are often out of music, but most of them move on to other things and end up relatively successful. It doesn’t mean those who stay in the arts have an easy path, and there are people who continue to stay in it and struggle, with having health insurance and a steady income, but what it does say is a lot of them find ways to live, in and out of the arts.</p>

34

<p>Thank you for this breath of hope article. Finally something showing that someone who is not a math whiz actually can have a future. I have been stressing after all the gloom and doom articles I have read.</p>

35

<p>@Musicprnt - Maybe I’m jaded but I I find that CEOs love to talk like they want creative thinking, initiators, people who try and fail and move on but at the end of the day, corporate cultures are almost universally rigid, conservative and risk averse.</p>

<p>And to show how jaded I really am, I’ve seen many people believe the rhetoric and end up ultimately being escorted out the door by a big burly guy and a severance check hence, I’ve become rigid, conservative and risk averse myself. Its the circle of corporate culture.</p>

36

<p>@madabout-</p>

<p>Having been in the working world for almost 3 decades, I am not about to deny the reality of what corporate culture can be like. That said, what that also doesn’t take into account is how hiring happens and so forth, what you are talking about is what happens after you are hired and it also depends where you work…what you are saying applies to the person who majored in CS, or engineering, or the dreaded business administration, they face the same challenges, too…what I am saying is that in getting a job, being a fine arts major can work for them in other things, based on many years experience, a music major stands out from someone who majored in accounting or finance or some other ‘ordinary’ background,it isn’t like people think, that everyone looks at the resume, and says “Oh, they majored in music, that crap” and throws it in the trash mail folder (that is a lot more likely with someone with boilerplate background). Even if the company doesn’t live up to its mantra of thinking outside the box and so forth, they at least like to pretend they do when looking at candidates.</p>

37

<p>i like this thread</p>

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<p>My opinion is that if you have the drive and passion and talent to succeed in the fine arts or music then there is no reason to go to college in the first place. Paying tens of thousands of dollars for a fancy piece of paper and a bunch of unrelated GE classes is a massive hindrance to building a portfolio or reputation for your line of work. For most careers all it takes is passion and learning the software used in their industry to build a portfolio and get a job.</p>

39

<p>gr33kbo1, how much do you know about the music industry? Conservatories are where talented but inexperienced performers get their experience.</p>

40

<p>gr33kbo1,
When my son’s HS Jazz teachers were young you could go off and get gigs and work right out of HS. One of my son’s teachers worked on Broadway for many years doing pit work and earned enough money to pay for his Berklee education. But musicians of that era will tell you that this is not the case anymore. These days if you have any intention of making it you should at least plan on getting a Bachelor’s degree. </p>

<p>And I beg to differ that unrelated GE classes are a hindrance. The skills you learn in liberal arts classes, such has history, literature, how to read and write critically are essential skills for any artist. And yes I suppose you could argue that we ought to teach these skills better in high school. I will not debate you on that. But most students in the US do not graduate with enough training in this area and can benefit from college level liberal arts classes. </p>

<p>Very few artists these days will be able to make a living entirely with their art. Even some of the biggest stars in music (with the exception of the handful of super-stars) will have to support their artistic goals with additional work. Many teach. In order to do that you need at least a bachelor’s degree and probably a masters degree.</p>

<p>Finally Conservatories are laboratories for the next generation to push the art and the medium in the direction they want it to go while also getting guidance from those who are older and have been around. So when a young person says, “Wow look what I discovered, isn’t this cool?” the old guard can say, “Ah yes but have you looked at this artist from 19??”. That sort of thing used to happen more casually and it was easier for a young and up and coming artist to connect with the old guard. But there were fewer people on the planet back then and sadly it is much harder to get that sort of mentorship without attending a conservatory or program that puts you in regular contact with older more experienced musicians.</p>