You can’t make any money with an art degree!
Ever heard anyone say anything like that?
It might seem like it can be difficult to monetize an art degree (whether it be literary, digital media, or physical media), but it’s possible.
Even though art degrees aren’t a sure-thing financially, there are three great reasons that art degrees are worth having.
Learn Discipline in Various Environments
Art majors face a variety of instructors, each with their own demanding expectations. What makes you successful in one class might not help you at all in another.
Learning to succeed in various settings requires that the learner form their own understanding of what works and what doesn’t, along with how they can work with a variety of instructors.
When working with various managers (instructors), students have to be creative to earn good grades and progress on to the next project.
Students must also learn to create work that they can be proud of. Their work won’t look like anyone else’s, and they must feel confident enough in their own work to be proud of that.
Learn a Variety of Increasingly-Rare-But-Desirable Skills
After writing or creating a work, students must defend what it is and why it exists.
This process of selling an instructor on your work is almost identical to the process of selling a publisher or buyer on your work. So students will have an easier time doing this after they graduate.
Art majors learn how to take their creative ideas and make them work in an existing framework.
Whether it be a website, a brand of software, or a journal, paper, or blog, students learn to adapt their style and work to a larger vision – the same way that artists do in the world outside of academia.
Learn to Communicate Effectively
The greatest skill that art majors learn is how to communicate effectively.
It is becoming increasingly difficult nowadays to find people who know how to write a well-crafted email, text, letter, or white paper – even though all segments of business require these kinds of communication.
The fact that art majors (especially literary majors) master this skill gives them a huge advantage over their peers.
Typically the first connection with a new client or potential employer is through email, and a major way of keeping in contact with supervisors is through text, art majors are uniquely suited to operate in the modern world.
The ability to communicate allows art majors to interact with others without misunderstandings.
It also allows art majors to learn new topics quickly, as they understand how to read and grasp difficult concepts, simply by understanding how things are written and what a writer is attempting to convey to them.
It a world where financial troubles are ubiquitous, it is increasingly common for people to criticize art majors for their bleak financial prospects.
Keep in mind that art majors know how to produce great works with little instruction, make artistic texts or images fit in with larger frameworks, and to communicate – all skills that are increasingly rare, even though they are desirable.
I am an communication arts graduate. I speak for experience, it’s easy to make money with the course I have. I am now in advertising and create ads every now and then. I enjoy working on new ideas and I must say it pays a lot. A great advantage is that there are many side hustles I am qualified to apply. 😀
I always say that a degree in the arts is like getting a degree in “soft skills”- communication, problem solving, etc. The most desirable skills in any field.
I still hear people telling their kids this-same thing with communication degrees.
The way I see it, a degree in liberal arts still takes a lot of discipline and commitment to complete. Everything you said is true. My son-in-law has a music related degree and still found a great job in a non-music related career path working with a bunch of layers and CPAs. He has a whole different communication skill-set and interpersonal mindset than they do. He actually loves his job.