To The Person Choosing a Career In The Arts,

Your degree is not pointless. We hear so much now that kids need to pursue careers in “STEM” fields, but what about the forgotten careers in the arts?? A career in the arts is more than just painting, drawing, or acting, although those things are crucial too. The arts consist of fashion designers, play writers, interior designers, photographers, architects, music producers, set designers, composers, or cinematographers; and much, much more.

If you’re choosing a career in the arts you’ve probably heard one of more of these things said to you.

“How come you need a degree to be able to do that?” Come on art students, how many times have we gotten this one?!? I told someone the other day I was in school to be an interior designer and they said, “wait you aren’t majoring in just that, are you?” Yes, yes I am, it’s so hard to explain to people that it’s more than just decorating a room.

“Are you really going to make money in that career?” I’m sorry, but does any career start off with 6 figures? No, that’s why it’s called a career, you build up to that and work for it.

“You know you really have a one in a million chance at that.” You don’t come into theater and expect a leading role, that’s why actors and actresses train, rehearse, and practice for months before even auditioning.

“Aren’t you going to need another job too?” Yes, I might need a job to support my way through the process of reaching the top in my career, but to me it’s worth it to do what I love eventually as my full-time career.

“Is that even a hard degree?” I’m sorry, but would you like to try taking vocal diction, music theory, or music composition??

“That’s degree, that’s just a hobby.” Yes, some of us paint in our spare time. Yes, some of us sing along to catchy songs in our spare time. Yes, some of us play an instrument in our spare time. But when we devote 4 years of our education to studying solely it, it’s not because we like doing the arts as a hobby.

So, to the person choosing a career in the arts, your degree is not going to be worthless; not if you put your heart and soul into it. A degree in the arts should have just as much value as any other degree no matter the area of study.

Trust me, your life without art majors would be boring, really boring. So shoutout to all my fellow art majors all over the world making the world a more colorful place.

You get that degree, you pursue that dream, you change the world.