What to do with an MFA

Graduate School
1

<p>Hope I didn't miss an intro topic for newbies here. If I did, my bad. I'm ShadowBall and currently serving the final few months of a graduate education (I say "serving" because it feels like a prison sentence). I go to a school that no one has ever heard of and am getting an MFA in illustration.</p>

<p>Now here's the thing. I never wanted to teach at any level and after serving two college sentences against my will (long story, don't ask), I have also decided I do not want to do art commercially either. Grad school really didn't teach me anything - all it's done is cost $50,000 and interfere with my life and ability to find a job. As a result, I've developed a very negative view toward my major and almost want to stop doing art even for personal reasons because it no longer makes me happy to make anything.</p>

<p>Anyway, here's my question: What can I do with this piece of crap degree outside the field of education or art? I have very little work experience - some freelance art and writing here and there, and a telemarketing job in 2011 that I was fired from after about 2 months. How do I even get my foot in any door with two degrees and little work experience? Will this degree make me "overqualified" for things? Should I leave it off job applications and resumes? I worry if I leave it off, employers will ask me what I've been doing for the last 4 years...but if I leave it on, they'll assume they'll have to pay me more, which means that my application will go right in the trash.</p>

<p>Because of the fact that I will owe well over $100,000 between the undergrad and graduate degrees, my current plan is one I'm not exactly thrilled about. I feel my only option is to work just enough to keep my income below the poverty level or go on welfare so I don't have to repay my loans. Not that I don't want to repay them, but I will not be able to afford to live independently if I do, and lenders do not care if you can't afford to live. I've also considered the Job Corps. I know it's generally for younger adults, but I would try to get them to make an exception for me so I could get some actually useful job skills.</p>

<p>Had things gone MY way, what I would have done is taken a year off after high school to get a regular job wherever I could get work and actually THINK about what I would attend college for...which most likely would have been something in health care like being a pharmacist or pharmacy assistant or X-ray technician. Something like that - nothing that requires a decade of university, but something that pays more than minimum wage. But since everyone else seems to think they know what's better for me than I do, I wound up wasting 8 years of my life in art college getting degrees I never wanted and can't use. I know people joke about how useless art degrees are, but when you're living the reality of attempting to find a job with a BS in design or an MFA in illustration, you find out those jokes are pretty true.</p>

<p>For those with master's degrees in art, is it possible to get a job outside the field of art or education with that degree hanging off your resume? I understand I won't be able to get a wonderful job, but I worry the degree will prevent me from finding even minimum wage employment.</p>

2

<p>…anyone? So absolutely no one here has pursued a MFA degree? I guess it’s more useless than I thought.</p>

3

<p>You can do anything <em>with</em> an MFA. If you want to know what you can do <em>using</em> an MFA, I’m not going to be of much help - I don’t have one and that’s far afield of what I do. Most of the people I know with MFAs who are using them are teaching their craft.</p>

<p>But, you can use the other skills you have to land a job. I recently met an MFA who works as an administrator in a research institute at a university. You don’t have much work experience, but what skills do you have? Can you program? Do you have some research or analytical skills? Are you great at writing and editing? Can you present well? There have to be some skills that you have, even “soft” skills like communicating, that are marketable. You need to figure out what those are and learn to parlay them. If you are still in your MFA program, your university likely has a career center; visit them and have a career counselor help you figure out how to describe your skills.</p>

<p>Most jobs are major-free, by which I mean you don’t need a certain major to do the job. What you should do is look at your career center’s listings, as well as other job sites - Indeed.com, Idealist.org (nonprofit kinds of social justicey jobs), stuff like that - and begin applying. Since you don’t want to do art for a living, you actually have it easier. Trying to compete in the art world is more difficult than competing outside. You’ve done freelance writing - maybe you can get a job as an editor or a technical or science writer. (The institute I visited recently also had an in-house person who’s job it was to edit the grants and publications the scientists wrote.) You know art, so maybe you can get a job doing web design support or something.</p>

<p>If all or most of your loans are federal ones, you can put them on the income-based repayment plan or one of the other federal loan plans that give relief to low-income earners in federal student loan debt. Check it out on the ed.gov websites.</p>

<p>The other thing is - stop reflecting upon what you would have done or how useless your degree is. That kind of rumination is pointless and will only make you bitter and angry. You can’t change what was done. Instead, focus on the future and trying to improve your resume and your skills. In the mean time, do productive things - teach yourself to program, visit the career center.</p>

4

<p>My school doesn’t seem to extend their career services to the graduate students because just about all of them already have a career when they enroll (I’d say about 95% are teachers or professors). I don’t have too many useful skills either - I know Photoshop and Illustrator front to back and can do Flash animation, I can write, I can research, the one job I had was a call canter job, so I guess that’s communication. It’s just that company has a horrible reputation and while the branch I was at closed, I would not get a good reference. I don’t know if it would be more helpful or harmful to put them on an application or resume.</p>

<p>Mostly I’m concerned with whether or not this degree will prevent me from getting a job. I live in a very small town with very little calling for college education outside the hospital, so I have to just take what I can get. Which might be Wal-Mart or CVS, and that’s fine. I just don’t want to be told I’m “overqualified” due to my education.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, I will probably still do art, but it’s going to be on my terms. I’m sick of people ditching me because I expect to be paid or demanding 35 revisions for one image and then deciding they’re not going to pay me. If I could sell my own art as it is, without some *******'s two cents, I would do that. But I refuse to try to compete anymore.</p>

<p>If I didn’t have so much debt, I’d consider going back to college for something that’s actually useful and just leave the MFA off my resume. But I don’t know if a community college would take me with two existing degrees. Plus I also have to be concerned with loan repayment and garnishment of wages. I can do income-based repayment for federal loans, but unfortunately I got private loans from Sallie Mae for undergrad and they don’t do income-based repayment plans. So I’m just going to not pay them at all - not that I don’t want to, but if they can’t be bothered to work with me on a payment plan I can actually afford, then they don’t deserve to get repaid. Trying to find a good balance between having an income and staying below the poverty level is going to be tough. I might have to hack off my own leg or something to get disability to supplement whatever income I get.</p>

<p>Anyway, thanks very much for taking the time to read and respond! :)</p>