<p>I think my college and grad school majors were just right for my career… BFA musical theare undergrad and MFA directing graduate school. I have made my career in the performing arts and support myself comfortably for close to 20 years. :-)</p>
<p>I have friends who are just graduating from college with degrees in the performing arts… they are all employed, most working in their chosen field. Most of the young people who I know with degrees in the performing arts who are looking for work outside of the performing arts industry have also been successful in securing employment. They are not working on Wall Street or in finance or as accountants, pharmacists, or engineers … but they are employed in salaried, often benefited positions. One of my recent graduate friends who is employed in his field relayed to me how surprised that his family friends were that he (with a performing arts degree) was the one from his HS graduating class who has a well paying job in his field, and will not be moving back into his parents house for the year. I also have friends with performing arts degrees who have completed pre-med requirements either concurrently to obtaining their degree or post earning their degree, and are now in medical school or now doctors. Other performing arts graduate friends obtained MBAs and now work in business… some performing arts related, others not.</p>
<p>I think with the current state of affairs there are no guarantees, regardless of school attended or college major.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap-- How about a job doing research. It would require research skills and good writing skills to convey a summary of her research. She could do this for a consulting firm, marketing firm, business or any organization that does competitive and market analysis and research. Also, many companies are developing there online media images and are in need of good writers to keep their sites updated and current and inline with their “brand” identities.</p>
<p>KatMT, I have been wanting to post the same thing. Every person that i know who graduated with a degree (mostly BFAs) in theatre are employed somewhere within the theatre world. I don’t know of any out of work theatre or dance major grads, either doing acting jobs on stage or tv/film, directing, crew, managing actors of teaching theatre/dance. </p>
<p>I have absolutely no qualms about my daughter pursing a BFA in Acting.</p>
<p>Sydsim that has been my experience as well.</p>
<p>In the interest of complete disclosure, I should add that sometimes between performing arts positions stints temping, substitute teaching, retail, food service, bartending, real estate, sales, etc… might be necessary, as well as creative ways of using the arts degree, like coaching, teaching, trade shows, etc… </p>
<p>Those jobs are often part of the journey, and allow you to continue to pay bills while pursuing the next performing arts job. Maybe those in arts fields are more prepared for this to be part of the path, and indeed often will pursue these jobs in between job opportunities in the field because of the temporary nature and flexibility. I remember my uncle saying in the early to mid 1990s when my business major grad cousin was looking for a job in his field and working at a restaurant job in the meantime, that at least I was prepared for that to be part of my path, so it was not as much of a disconcerting shock or surprise to me. </p>
<p>I think most people understand that a decent but not outstanding student who is going to college primarily to launch a career is probably better off majoring in accounting than English. But a student with outstanding verbal abilities and a passion for literature is not crazy to major in English. What someone majors in may depend on their</p>
<p>(1) values – intellectual vs. pragmatic
(2) academic abilities
(3) family income (if Bill Gates’ children want to major in art history, they should go ahead.)
(4) ability to minor in a “practical” subject to complement a major chosen for its intrinsic interest</p>
<p>Has anyone ever surveyed college graduates asking them if they are happy with their choice of major? Are their tools which ask students about their interests and abilities and suggest majors?</p>
<p>Only if said student wants to be an accountant. This is crazy advice for a kid who hates numbers, finds accounting boring, and would make a terrible accountant.</p>
<p>I think folks are missing my point. Allow me to try again.</p>
<p>One poster (blossom?) here on CC once claimed that the reason many recruiters prefer the elites is that they have a higher concentration of smart and capable students. In short, it is more efficient for the recruiters to go there. Fair enough.</p>
<p>I learned, right here in CC, that approximately 40 percent of students in the elites are hooked, and together with favoured applicants such as children of foreign dignitaries, entertainers, politicians, clothing designers, professors and so forth, no less than 60% of the elite places are already taken:</p>
<p>[Lexington:</a> Poison Ivy | The Economist](<a href=“Poison Ivy”>Poison Ivy)</p>
<p>We also know, with the exception of CalTech, elites enroll less than 20 percent of students strictly on merit, (see MITChris Statistics for MIT 2014 Admissions Cycle, for example) as we traditionally defined that term. Putting it all together, the fact that fully 25% of Harvard acceptances score LESS than 1390 on the SAT (M+CR) makes eminent sense.</p>
<p>Using college reputation as an initial screen seems unnecessarily noisy. Why not tighten the recruiting process and save time and money? Why wade through 80% of the class to get at the remaining 20% when you can get directly at 100% by using test scores and or majors to do the initial screening? Maybe the Lauren Rivera study is telling the truth after all?</p>
<p>My company uses test scores as a screen. Majors are less efficient- there are outstanding students in all disciplines. Plus your use of the term “merit” is misleading- there are companies that actively recruit the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Crimson, Yale Daily News, etc.- not because they care about their journalistic output (they don’t), nor because they are looking for people interested in the media industry (they don’t.) They do so because those jobs come after a highly efficient screen- those kids have worked their tails off starting as miserable copy editors and beat reporters, and their peers have deemed them worthy of leadership.</p>
Aside from my view that these percentages are nonsensical–this shows a common misunderstanding of the hooked admittees at elites. Putting aside the fact that many hooked people have stats that are good enough for elites without the hook, those who don’t have stats that still put them in the upper reaches of US high school graduates. At the Ivies, for example, the academic index places limits on how many lower-stats athletes can be recruited (and the lowest stats aren’t all that low). Rather, it’s less elite schools that admit a bunch of athletes who can’t do the work and fail to graduate. This idea that Harvard and its ilk have abandoned “merit” and are admitting a bunch of low-ability hooked students is a fantasy perpretrated mostly by people who oppose affirmative action for political reasons. Any contact with actual students at these schools shows that it’s nonsense–or a lie.</p>
<p>Hunt:
I agree with you mostly. Minorities at top schools are highly qualified people. But it is undeniable that, on average, minoritites are relatively less qualified in terms of GPA and Standard Scores than some other non-minority students at the same institution.</p>
<p>In “The Gatekeepers”, a book about Wesleyan’s admissions process, it is explained that some marginally qualified students were admitted because they from an URM group. One student, initials MP, is described by the Wikipedia as a “Native American who overcomes a rough background and a checkered transcript to succeed in a preparatory school”. The book, to its credit, follows up on the matriculated students. MP flunks out.</p>
<p>At Harvard I roomed with a guy who just wasn’t very smart or studious and who probably would not have been admitted if he were white or Asian.</p>
<p>The selective privates, obviously, do not use anything like UT’s 10% plan.</p>
<p>I also think it’s worth noting that a person with an 1800 SAT (which seems like a low score here on CC) is at the 82% percentile nationally. Most people with scores like that would not flunk out of Harvard, unless they made a poor choice of major or didn’t do the work.</p>
<p>I do not understand why that article keeps talking about the Texas 10% rule when UT is the only Texas University that has been granted an exception. They are NOT required to take the top 10%, but only the top 8%.</p>
<p>And if you do not fit the demographic they’re looking for, and you fall out of that 8% AT ALL, then you can forget about attending there as a freshman.</p>
<p>We had a student a couple of years ago that was ONE PERSON off of the top 8% (8.1%), her test scores were great, her grades were great, but she was not admitted.</p>
<p>Any other public university in Texas would have admitted her automatically.</p>
<p>“I also think it’s worth noting that a person with an 1800 SAT (which seems like a low score here on CC) is at the 82% percentile nationally.”</p>
<p>True again, but the original argument was about employers trying to hire the best people. So, could they do better than 82% (say, get close to 99%)? The answer is yes.</p>
<p>I know an athlete at one of the Ivies who was not a good student in high school and who wouldn’t even have been admitted, absent the sports hook, to a moderately selective public or private university. He was certainly not “in the upper reaches of US high school graduates”. Unlike some people, I don’t believe that the Ivies have large numbers of undeserving students. However, there are definitely low-stat athletic exceptions even at those schools.</p>
<p>The point is that if an employer goes to recruit from a top institution, it knows that some populations have higher GPAs and Standard Scores than other populations do. Some may have the 1800 SATs. Some others may have the 2250 SATs.</p>
But their system (in theory, at least) ensures that there can only be a very small number of such persons. (Indeed, elsewhere on CC is an Academic Index calculator.)
But that employer will also know that those top schools have the most qualified members of those populations–which may well be something they want as well.</p>
This will be true at most any school that doesn’t admit strictly by the numbers, that takes into account the reasons for lower numeric scores, like HS quality. I think some colleges would like their student body to better reflect the makeup of the general population, and also to provide a more vibrant campus experience for all.</p>
that has been my experience as well.</p>