Students who receive a critique-based arts education, in which they are constantly critiquing and evaluating one another (and their own) work, giving and receiving feedback, learning interpersonal skills are being recognized more and more as great leaders by major companies NOT directly involved in the arts.
" Steve Jobs, who was neither a computer programmer nor a hardware engineer, famously told graduates of Stanford University in 2005 that one of the most influential and lasting experiences in his brief tenure at Reed College was his dabbling in calligraphy." (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/is-a-liberal-arts-degree-worth-it/12107/)
I attended a panel last October at the Performing & Visual Arts College Fair at UCLA and took GREAT notes.
Here's what an admissions counselor for CalArts said (sorry, didn't write down her name): "Arts can teach you entrepreneurship skills: you audition, receive critiques, focus on doing and even marketing something you love. These are transferable skills that work across disciplines. Many have gone on to medical school and law and they become more attractive to medical/law admissions committees because they have studied something interesting/unconventional."
There's data on this from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) out of Indiana, which reports that over eighty percent who get arts degree are happy. About twenty percent did it with no intention of studying that on the other side. And about 40 percent go on to be educators. (http://snaap.indiana.edu/)
And here's something else to think about: many students who want to study art in college already know what they're passionate about, which puts them way ahead of a lot of students. (Don't underestimate that--and remind your parents of this!)
On that same panel, an admissions officer from UCLA said: "Students need to know that there's more than one way to get to what you want to do." She asked the room how many parents in the audience were currently working in the field they got their degree in. In a room full of maybe two hundred parents and students, maybe 5 parents raised their hands.
And an admissions counselor from SMU said: "[At SMU] We're gonna drop you in a place where you are gonna “cook”--you’re going to marinate, learning a lot about a lot of different things… But I don't know what you are going to be or do. It could be something totally new--a profession that hasn't been invented yet: a hologram designer?! Who knows?"
I think this final part is the most important part: you never know where you'll end up. But if you LOVE art--if you MUST create art to be happy--then getting an arts degree is most definitely a valuable way to spend a few years of your life.
This from a guy with two arts degrees: Bachelors of Speech from Northwestern (Performance Studies) and an MFA in Acting from UC Irvine.
Now I'm working (very happily) as a teacher and college counselor.
Rilke put it best:
"Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
"This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."
Got other questions about arts degrees/getting into college?
Feel free to post here or email me directly: ethansawyer@gmail.com
Peace,
Ethan