you know what I'm talking about, phylosophy major, art major, art history major, that sort of thing. What happened when you got your degree and went out into the world??


For me it was just low life jobs that didn't require any education and just failure at everything. I'm a photography major, and I think it's completely useless. I thought that University could teach me to be an artist but there is no such thing. Artists don't need to go to college, they just make art. If you need to go to college to learn how to make art, well your not an artist, don't waste your time. It's my take on it and I had to learn it the bad way. Because that's just me.


So I did what any practical girl would do and I've gone back to college and right now I'm studying Advertising and Marketing and graphic design. I've just begun, I'm like one month into it and I love AND I looked at the job adds today and there are like a zillion things this new career path is going to allow me to do, so I hope I can do it right with this one.

So, tell me your horror stories.

I feel like I always need to answer posts like these somewhat seriously because there might be someone on this board whose passion does turn out to be art or philosophy or whatever else it might be with enough ambition and sense to make things happen. But I don't know. Maybe KR is not a place people take seriously for these things.

A bit of advice/personal experience for those studio art and art history majors. Your degree alone will not get you anywhere--whether it is in the field of art or any other field for that matter. If you feel this is your path, you must be determined to get experience either at galleries/museums, and to be honest most of it will be unpaid or rather poorly paid. It is of utmost importance, however, that you are able to show that you can be successful in such settings. On the other hand, you will also get to see how galleries and museums work, depending on what department you're working in. You might love it, you might hate it...

So you want to be an artist? There are probably better qualified people on this board to tell you about being an artist/attempting to make it in the art world. Extremely grueling. Time consuming. And most of all, unpaid! A fair number of my friends are artists. The ones living in New York actually make good money being freelance teaching artists at museums and sometimes at schools. Museums such as the Museum of Modern Art will pay their freelancers--educators and teaching artists alike--$110 per hour fifteen minute lesson. During busy times you are teaching about 4 lessons per day maybe 3 days a week. Some find this is enough for the week, some may decide to take other teaching jobs. I freelanced over a couple of weekends and also got handsomly rewarded. This becomes steady work as you begin to work at more and more institutions. The best thing: time to make work.

Say you don't want to teach. Okay. In any case, you will still have to work and that work, if you're lucky, will be around art and if not it might be whatever else accomodates a schedule where you get to make work.

It's a tough path and only if you are truly ambitious and willing to endure should you decide to wander onto it.

While I did not study philosophy, a fair number of my friends did, and no one applied for a 'philosophers job opening.' They're mostly on their way to law school or in PhD programs so they can become professors.

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Another problem/tip: LOCATION. What is possible in Los Angeles might not be possible in New York might not be possible in Chicago, and vice versa, etc.

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thiswas probably my biggest problem, where I live there isn't an art scene, at least not like in New York or Los Angeles or something like that and no one makes 110 dollars per lesson in anything in here. And I¡m just not going to go to new york or anything like that.

I've made my peace with it really lol, I don't enjoy that senseless struggle honestly, so I'm going in a new direction where I will have more job opportunities were I live.

My personal question would be what do you do if you dropped out of college as a youth and have no degree? Personally, here in the UK I scored an a-level and a handful of GCSE's - but no degree.

I feel too old and out of touch with academia to go to uni and have had far too much free time to devote to a proper job.

Answer: e-commerce.

This is my full time job now, running e-commerce websites. I sell peyote (cactus) on Peyote UK and I actually make money and profit from it. The money is not a regular income so I dont rely on it to pay the bills but its extra money when it does come in and all it takes is being at a computer for most the day which I am anyway. I answer e-mails asking queries over the peyote and also take sales. Then when an order comes in all it is is a trip to the post office in the morning to send out the parcels. Sweet. Then the rest of the day is mine to enjoy however I like.

I also sell stuff on e-bay which I dont sell often enough to set up a website to sell. That makes me some profit too. I am thinking of expanding my sites to sell other items, and on top of this when I feel like it I apply for freelance positions for web site development over at elance.com I have also had software developing jobs in the past which have paid well too.

Like I said tho, its not regular money, but when it does come in its nice to spend on treats and stuff for the family and myself!

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exactly. I study art sciences, specializing in performing arts and music and very interested in going into either the movie or music business but there's no way I'll be doing this in Belgium because there's hardly any budget for movies here (and mostly the ones that do get made are crap) and most of the music made here is shitty too.
I will be relocating to Los Angeles hopefully... I did already live there before and love the city so I guess that's a plus for me.

But as was said before, no education is useless really. sure, for some people it's easier to find a job but when I compare the things I learn with someone who is studying economics I sometimes think that what is thought to us is much more enlightening and enriching and has more vital importance in life. Not that those other things aren't important, but I see a lot of people in other fields of study who are sort of "blinkered specialists" but have no culture...
of course this is an endless discussion that has been going on for ages.

I just think that any degree from a good university is something to be proud of and sth you can get somewhere with, if you're willing to work for it. Just don't expect it all to be handed to you on a silver platter.

culture is INCREDIBLY important and education is too, and art is too but we don't live in a fairy land, we live in the real world as in you've got to pay your bills. So I basically stopped looking down on economy students A LONG TIME AGO, because who am I to judge?? they'll probably even make more money than me, or at least they have bigger opportunity for it.


I guess what I mean is what's the point of studying arts and then going into the world and ending up working a regular office job?? like a friend of mine. And he can't aspire to something higher really because since he doesn't have a practical degree, well can he do??


I stand by my point, I mean if you have to go to college to learn how to be an artist, you are not a real artist.-

This is why I'm studying French, not English Literature, even though Literature is consistantly my highest-graded subject. It's useful. Sad, really. I'd love to go to Uni and study something really interesting like Theology, but unless I wanted to go into teaching/academia...

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You can still study that but I would study it as a hobbie after getting a useful degree.

Does a fine arts degree not give you the same ‘college graduate’ bump as a liberal arts one? My Bachelor of Arts in Literature doesn’t specifically qualify me to do anything in the field of literature, but it does put me in a better position than someone without a college degree at all. If a fine arts degree doesn’t do that, it’s a damn good thing I couldn’t afford Sarah Lawrence, because if I had gone there I would have gotten a BFA in Creative Writing.

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I don't understand why in Britain having a degree in languages is considered an asset, but at the same time the only language jobs out there are in call centres. Maybe it's different for people who can speak French. What are you planning to do when you finish uni?
Anyway, my degree (foreign languages and translation) has been fairly useless so far. We'll see what happens when I finish my master's, but I have a feeling the situation won't change. If ALL fails (and I mean if I really can't get anything else) I am going to do a PhD.

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now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces
I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone.

Language jobs = call centres? WTF? All the call centres from the UK are outsourced to India anyway...

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what do you mean?

I got my BA in music performance and this fall I'm starting my MA/Phd work. The only guaranteed work in the humanities is teaching, and for that you have to be prepared to get an advanced degree.

A BA is better if you're going to be entering the general workforce. A BFA makes you more qualified to keep working in your chosen field.

Exactly what I said, because I am a college graduate I'm qualified for more jobs than if I wasn't, even though I'm not specifically qualifed to do something in particular in the field I studied.

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i'm doing a degree in biblical studies...
i originally thought this would be a good idea - and that finding a job would be easyyy - because it involves theology, history, literature etc and languages (hebrew and n.t. greek).
but now i've realised that the only job i can get that's related to my subject is become a teacher, which i dont have the patience for - and it means i'll be studying for another year after i've finished my degree...

i need to have a big think about the future 8(

I was originally just an art major, but now that I'm entering my senior year I've added graphic design.
Fortunately, I really love graphic design, but I'm looking back trying to figure out wtf I was planning on doing with a degree in art history.