What can I do with an art degree?

What can I do with an Art Degree?

• I like art , infact I love it. I love art and writing, the only two things that really keep me interested. I like all kinds of art, graphite to computer art. I have basic knowledge with Photoshop CS4, I've been doing graphic things for people since I was 14 (i'm almost 19), such as making MYSPACE layouts (lol only example I have). I always get the full extra credit points on projects for my creativeness due to my use of Photoshop and Jasc Paintshop for coverpages and such. And during group projects my job was always drawing the things (lucky me, I didn't have to do the hard work lol). So this is why I want to major in art, it's one thing I am good at and like doing. I know an Art Degree alone may not be the smart thing, but what else could I double major in? I am good with computers also and children. The question is what can I do with an Art Degree and should I double major in something else, if so, what?

• Answer:

  First of all you have to me more specific than "art degree" it's like saying I want to get a business degree, a math degree or science degree; what kind of artist do you want to be or do you want to restore art works, be a curator of a museum or gallery? Do you want to paint or design websites? A degree in any concentration of the arts is not a license that guarantees you a job or any kind of career in a particular field. Obviously if you are talented enough, it wont matter if you even went to school, good work is good work. Conversely even if you go to the best most prestigious school and you have no talent you're never going to be hired. Rather it's more of a certification that shows you've received formal training in composition, color theory and art history as those are all standard requirements of every BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts, usually augmented with a particular concentration: studio arts, photography, visual communications) that I can think of. Also even more important, college is an invaluable source of networking. The people you meet from your instructors to the random kid you met in the library could potentially open doors for you that would never would have been available had you not gone to school and met these particular people. Not that you can do networking outside of school, it's just a natural place for like minded "creatives" to meet and interact. If you love art and writing do a double major: get a BFA in whatever art concentration and get a BA in English or writing, I'm not familiar with English degrees. Business-marketing and business-management degrees are very useful with visual communication degrees especially if you want to work for larger design firms. Computer science degrees are an absolute must if you want to design for the web or devices, although bigger or specialized schools include those classes into their art degree programs. A BFA in art education might be advantageous since you like children although art teachers in k-12 schools don't make a lot of cash and most often than naught art/music are the first things scrapped at many public schools. What can you do with an art degree? Well most anything you want (I almost joined the military to be a combat artist!), it depends heavily on your concentration and if you get a minor or second degree. Then again some of the most successful artists earned degrees in other fields before "discovering" that they had a sh!t load of artistic talent, so a case could be made that a degree is simply a piece of paper that says you've been trained to certain standards. Your degree doesn't limit what you can do in life, only you, yourself can decide what you can or cannot do. Another issue you haven't mentioned is Art College vs 4-year school. Some places go after people that received their degrees from "art schools" because of the prestige of the instructors and the quality and focus of education. Others prefer people with degrees from traditional 4-year schools because they receive a "well rounded" education i.e you take English, math, history, science, social sciences, language, history, etc. whereas if you went to an art school many if not all of these classes would be unavailable. Hope this helps and like you said, if your doing the art you miss most of the lame, boring work that the other artistically illiterate individuals love, like writing TPS reports, HA! P.S Excellent use of the word graphic-"I've been doing graphic things for people..." most people only use that word in a very general sense to describe "visual communications" which is obviously incorrect as the word graphic can be used to describe anything done artistic.