Hate to tell you but sometimes artsy-fartsy can pay off bigtime. I know several people who are millionaires through the arts (mostly opera singers).
I’m not sure why freepers are so hostile to the arts. I’m in the arts and my husband and I earn a fairly good living that way. And I can tell you, it ain’t easy to be a good artist - whether visual or theatrical. A lot of work, a lot of sweat and sometimes very little payoff. But the world would be a very sad, dreary place without some of these hardworking people.
Agreed. I also have an Arts degree and make a decent living. You just have to love what you do, be dedicated, and good. I wonder if the high unemployment rates reported have more to do with the volume of people that get these degrees compared to the others. Most of them may have gone in thinking it would be easy, when in reality, nothing is easy.
I can tell you why I have no respect for most of the supposed “artists” of today. My state mandates that 2% of any public project be spent on “art”. Consequently all public buildings, bridges, parks, etc. are all full of vulgar and ugly piles of metal and trash which is called “art” and costs the taxpayers millions of wasted dollars. It used to be an artist had to have genuine talent to sell their wares. Now “art” is a guaranteed welfare program for the untalented and unimaginative.
What do you guys do if I may ask? I’m an engineer but sometimes I wish I had done something in the arts. Like I think industrial design would’ve been fun.
So many Freepers consider themselves to be oh so practical people. On these kinds of threads you often see admonition after admonition for everyone to drop the major they have and go into the engineering school and you know the reasonL the monetary payoff .
I've often wondered why we don't just drop the advanced education requirements (you know, history, foreign languages, philosopy, and the such) and set up engineering institutes for these people where they won't bothered by such requirements. They clearly cannot differentiate education from job training.
And so can becoming a professional athlete.
For the vast majority of kids, neither pursuit makes economic sense. For the small minorities of kids who have the drive and passion to become the best in those fields, yes, they can (and probably will) cash in.
The difference is that the taxpayers aren’t on the hook for HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of student debt that won’t be repaid for athletic kids who can’t get a job.
When I see kids with artsy-fartsy degrees who are in debt over $100K... and I have a pretty good handle on what their field pays the average/median/exceptional graduate... I can predict quite safely that the next debt-inflated bubble to pop will be the education bubble and ground zero of that explosion will be liberal arts and artsy-fartsy degrees.
Re: your second point: One of the reasons why conservatives are hostile to the arts is NEA. Others are CPB, PBS, public funded art exhibits, museums and so on that make it their mission to offend the sensibilities of the public.
The following quite nicely captures the attitude of public servants and “the arts:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNw0P5ZMbA