I am a big believer in Arts degrees. I think they add infinite value to an education that cannot be derived from any other source.
This is not a very popular idea, however. People love to deride Arts degrees, calling them ‘fluff’ degrees, making fun of the people who do them, and love to tout the fact that at the end, you’re not really qualified to do anything.
When I left high-school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. None of the vocational degrees appealed to me whatsoever. So I enrolled in Sydney University’s Arts degree, majored in English Literature, and spent a blissful four years expanding my mind in ways I never could have done elsewhere.
I really believe that that degree taught me how to to think. That might seem a strange thing to say, but it’s true. It took me from my sheltered private school upbringing and introduced me to a world where things were studied only for their own sake. There is something very particular about learning for learning’s sake, as opposed to learning for the sake of a future potential income; and I think that it’s important that it continues. The study of the arts is, in effect, the study of what makes us human – music, art, literature; all of these things have been the greatest source of learning about the history of humanity, culture and society.
This morning The Observer writes:
“Next month the government will announce its comprehensive spending review, which will cut billions of pounds of Whitehall money from university coffers. Officials are said to be considering slashing the universities’ £4.7bn teaching budget by 75%. This would hit arts and humanities courses hardest because universities have been told to protect “strategically important” subjects such as science, technology, engineering and maths. Academics have warned that arts and humanities could end up only in high-ranking institutions that admit fewer low-income students.”
And this is leading to the gentrification of Arts degrees, as state schools are “so preoccupied with core exam results and league-table rankings” that less time was being devoted to the “cultural enrichment often required to excel in more creative subjects”; and as a result ‘disproportionately low numbers of low-income students enrol on arts and humanities courses, fearing they may be less employable than if they take other subjects’. Meanwhile, students from high-income families were more likely to study the Arts, with a disporportionately high percentage of history and philosophy graduates coming from high-income families.
I’m very lucky that my parents funded my degree, so I didn’t have to worry about debt as a new graduate. And I may have lucked out, and ended up working in a field that is connected to my degree – my first ‘real’ job actually stipulated an Arts degree as necessary to apply. But I’m not going to pretend that this is the case for everyone with an Arts degree. On the whole, we may be less likely to end up working in an associated field than those with vocational degrees, and may not be the highest income earners at the end; but I hate that this is turning people away from the Arts because on the whole, state schools are discouraging low and middle income students from applying for these degrees.
I think it’s important that people from all economic backgrounds are encouraged to study the Arts, even if it means keeping Arts degree tuition fees protected from rises – what do you think?
It depends on where you are focussing your argument. If you are saying that vocational and non-vocational degrees should be treated equally for funding purposes, then I tend to agree. But this division does not align nicely with arts versus sciences. It is a mistake to assume, for example, that all science degrees are vocational and that all arts degrees are non-vocational. Having a degree in both classics and computational mathematics, I have a foot in both camps.
In my (rather old-fashioned) opinion, a degree should have intellectual rigour and I certainly found that in both of my two subjects, but in different ways. Furthermore, science and engineering are also a part of human culture, a fact often forgotten in the British media, and some of them may also be under a spending threat. -SG
I definitely agree that the arts and humanities are important and deserve attention – how else do we define ourselves as human if we don’t have art, music, literature and etc?
The problem is complex: for one, humanities students are often labeled slackers because students who find the sciences too difficult tend to “default” to subjects like English, thinking they can skate by. Then they graduate and find a job at a library or go to graduate school and become even worse slackers. Which gives the discipline a bad name.
Another problem is that humanities jobs are extremely limited at the moment. And, for almost any degree in the humanities, there’s no emphasis on job-related skills that one can get from an English degree. At least, it wasn’t there for me until I was a junior in college at a state university here in the States. It’s one of those misconceptions that the university needs to work on breaking.
Another underlying assumption here is that you must want to teach if you go into the humanities, because that’s the only job option. Yeah … not everyone is cut out to be a teacher, and some find out all too late that they can’t do it. Students are also increasingly aware that our teachers are very poorly paid to boot, or they get laid off in their first year by cash-strapped school districts.
I wish everyone could realistically get more involved in the humanities (I was an English major myself) but the reality is that it’s tough out there, and people are more focused on getting gainful employment after graduation than studying Coleridge or contemplating Derrida
I believe both the arts & sciences are important, I’m not one of those people that separates as one more important than the other, they’re both important. Also some of the arts can be studied on your own with only a membership to the library such as art history, history, humanities, etc.
You may disagree but hear me out, the reason I think is because I’ve taken these classes in college (what we call university in the U.S.), gone to the classes, classmates and I ended up listening to the prof lecture basically what was in the textbook, then we had to go home prepare for quizzes and tests, came to class took the test and that was it, so that’s why I believe some arts courses don’t need to be studied in uni.
Also from my research, art degrees aren’t degrees that pay off at first, they are something that pay off later down the line. It can be difficult to get a job with an art degree at first, that’s why many middle class & working class students go for vocational degrees.
They need to make money right away, if you major in something like illustration, it can take time to get recognition and make money from your art. One thing that really irritates me, not sure if this is the same for Aussies, but in the U.S. many art colleges don’t teach business skills. Even the prestigious art colleges neglect this.
Artists need both artistic competency and business kills so they don’t get taken advantage of in the world, a lot of artists don’t make it after art college even when they are talented, because they weren’t taught in college how to promote, market themselves, and how to deal with the business world.
On top of that, art degrees are expensive. Its common in the U.S. for art colleges to cost $30-40k/year. Thus I ended up going to a state college, I can study both art and business here. I also disagree that colleges teach you how to think.
In my experience a lot of professors just want students to parrot what the prof spit out, maybe not everyone has had this unfortunate experience but I have had plenty of them. Besides, how did you function if you didn’t know how to think before going to college?
I’m sure you’ve had critical thinking skills before college, critical thought is not something that magically appears because you step into a building. I’m not trying to be rude, please don’t misunderstand.
Middle class and low income students are worried about having a roof on their head and not wanting to burden their parents, yes art degrees are nice but so is eating. This is why people double major, or why they later go back to college for 2nd bachelor degrees, again I value both art and science but I understand why people want vocational degrees.
I do agree with you in that its unfortunate that people make fun of art degrees. Whether you go into art, science, computers, etc. It seems that the people who make money are people who are good, smart, know how to be self-motivated, bring some value to others,etc.
I’ve heard of people with Computer Science degrees and Accounting degrees that couldn’t get hired because they lack social skills during the interview session. So I don’t think that vocational degrees are the magical answer. A lot of it depends on you as a person and how you use that degree.
Anyway sorry for rambling.
I really agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here, and disagree with pretty much everything everyone else has. I’m currently in my third and final year of study at the Winchester School of Art.
I don’t come from a hugely affluent background but thanks to my grades during my youth I was able to attend private school and gain a high standard of education and graduated from school as class leader. Despite this, and despite me not having a lack of financial understanding in reference to life after University, it was my decision to pursue a career in Graphic Design. I think all of the people reading and writing in response to this article should try and understand the idea of working towards a job which satisfies your needs mentally as well as financially.
All to often people abandon the things they hold dearest and abandon their ambitions for life with greater (or easier) financial safety. I, more than most, understand the fact that many Art Degree graduates don’t come out of University with an immediate financial benefit drawing from the investment they’ve made. Making a life and a living within the Art industry requires a great deal of grit and determination.
It might well be true that some people with a greater level of financial backing going into higher education opt for degree’s with a higher risk of either unemployment or lower wages than other professions, but this doesn’t mean that the majority of students studying Art degree’s are in the same situation. I’ve read the observer article and although it supports the idea that Art students do come from more affluent backgrounds, it also says that this is true for only around 30% of students. As well as this, it says the same idea is applicable to students studying English, History and a number of other more “traditional” degree’s that most of you who mock and criticism those deciding to go to pursue the arts would support and describe as being more “reputable” or “financially beneficial”.
I had a dispute about this whole concept about art school after hearing about the increase in tuition fee’s in the UK. Somebody said that they feel that art degree’s and other forms of higher education that they deem to be a waste of time should be increased and other more valuable degree’s like Doctorates should be cheaper. I didn’t disagree that nationally valuable degrees in things like nursing that are over charged and underpaid should be cheaper, but the argument that the industry doesn’t contribute to the country in a big way is very ignorant and naive.
The art industry contributes to around 70% of jobs in the UK in one way or another, and if they don’t have an input during the job itself, it will have had a direct effect on the image/branding/and first impression that all business’s give.
Nike’s annual advertising budget is estimated at around $1.2 Billion. Without artists, graphic designers, advertisers and more of all, fashion designers, Nike wouldnt function as a company. They wouldn’t be making the money they make, providing the jobs they provide, and producing the products they sell to nearly every living person.
I know this is a never ending dispute. The truth is all too many people share this naive opinion and very few people have a coherent response to the things I’ve just said when presented to them. People just don’t consider the truth.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thought-out response. I’m glad you understood what I was trying to say in my post. Arts degrees can prepare you for any number of employment paths and like you say, these graduates contribute greatly to the UK economy each year – not just to ‘be a librarian’ as one poster above seems to think! All the best for your final year of studies!