Christina VarvisIf you’re an Arts student, chances are you’ve heard the “So what will you do with your BA degree?” question. Most of the time it sounds condescending, especially when it’s followed by a not so believable “Oh, that’s nice” or a “Good for you.”
I’m not sure if there’s some unwritten rule that every non-Arts student is aware of, or if it’s just the socially-imposed hierarchy on campus, but Arts students tend to be looked at like finger-painting experts and Shakespeare lovers who drink chai tea lattes, listen to indie rock, and wear a lot of plaid rather than be taken seriously as intelligent university students.
I’m a fifth-year English major and Philosophy minor (yes, I went full hipster with my degree) and I’m proudly graduating from the Faculty of Arts with a BA in June. And yes, I’ve been asked this gut-wrenching question by fellow students, friends, and even family members.
At first, I was ashamed to admit that after four years (well, now five) I will “only” be receiving a BA degree. But I was only ashamed of it because society tells me that I should be ashamed of it.
The truth is that I came out of high school planning to go into Business. And after my first year of university, that was still the plan. But somewhere along the way I realized that I wasn’t good at Economics, I didn’t really care about Finance, and I wasn’t interested in Business at all. I realized that I was passionate about English, and it seemed stupid to ignore something that I knew I loved and was good at in order to obtain a “more useful” degree.
I don’t have anything against Business students. Maybe you’re passionate about Marketing, and if so, kudos to you because I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t want to be another cookie-cutter Business student for the sake of being another cookie-cutter Business student in hopes that I could be successful after university.
The same holds true for every other degree. If you go to bed at night with mathematical equations dancing in your head and a smile on your face because you’re in Mechanical Engineering, then good on you. If you come to class every day excited to look through a microscope in your Biology lab, then that’s excellent. And if you can’t wait to create an abstract painting that depicts something important and meaningful to you, then I commend you.
The point is that I chose to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English because it makes me happy. Oddly enough, I enjoy writing papers and analyzing novels. I enjoy participating in meaningful discussions. And I enjoy the subjectivity of it all. You may not feel the same way, and that’s okay.
I’m not judging you for your degree, so don’t judge me for mine. And to answer your question, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my degree. But I’m excited to find out.
From my own experience in University, arts students are more looked down upon because they spend thousands and thousands of dollars obtaining a degree that wont land them a job while the other students are working hard to become the best in their fields and make a lasting difference in the world and to human progress. I am a student with no funds to help me through school, every course equates to future debt. Going to university is giving me what i need to get a career that can get me back out of debt and make me a good living. Arts students are simply not relatable to students in my own faculty. If I ask a friend what they are going into or what their further plans are and they respond with “I’m an arts student with no idea what my degree will offer me but im here for fun” what am I supposed to do other than give an awkward smile and say “good for you”. I’m not going to tell them that they are privileged to be able to dilly dally with their degree without future consequence. They are not in my faculty and not lowering the chances of dedicated students coming to the school so they are harmless. Why should i pretend to be enthusiastic that someone is here for fun when i have a heavy workload and research into my own field to do? btw, I’m a computer science student focused on software. My main passion is for math but there aren’t enough well-paying jobs there to make a degree worthwhile for me. I had to settle for my second favorite thing, programming.
“I’m an arts student here for fun”. Up next on things that never happened! This!
Arts students are pursuing degrees that are just as relevant as yours, and make just as much if not more of a “lasting difference in the world and to human progress”. That’s a terrible, stuck up attitude to have. Some arts students even, gasp, work with technology just like you! And some don’t, and their degree is in what they love because there’s actually jobs that exist outside of STEM too. “Arts students are here for fun” is your own personal bias.
I’ve yet to see a painting that could propel men to the moon, cure disease or theorize about the natural laws of the universe. Which song is it that connected the world and brought information to the world like the computer scientists who created the internet? if your claim that arts can make more of a difference to human progress is valid then what is a single example of it?
Therein lies your ignorance, art does not only represent painting or music, airhead. There is more to art than that. The fact that you live in a world where you can sprout such bullshit without repercussion was made possible by the passion of various artists. Read up!
mind providing atleast one example?
Ever heard of Frida Khalo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cesar Vallejo, Oswaldo Guayasamin, Pablo Picasso. Like I said, read up!
listing a name isn’t really an example. What makes any of these people’s contributions more substantial than the internet or spacecraft?
No one was saying that their contributions were more or less substantial than the internet or spacecraft. You were the one who made that statement with your initial comments. The article never said that, it only defended the choice of an individual to take what they are interested in without being ridiculed.
saying “good for you” or “oh, that’s nice” is ridicule? sounds more like people are trying not to ridicule.
No one needs your “sympathy”. It is downright condescending to make a judgement on someone’s career choices based on your limited ill-informed perceptions. A lot of people do this ignorantly, and this article is a learning opportunity for many.
who said anything about sympathy? I stated that i really dont care if someone wants to take those courses, and if they do, why should i have sympathy for their mistakes.
You are just exposing yourself more and more. “mistakes”! who are you to define someone’s choices as a mistake. You are literally a personification of the problems this article was addressing.
If they are wealthy and can afford to throw money around like that then maybe its not a mistake but for those who come from poor backgrounds and have to work their ass off just to get out of debt, saying art is worth taking is simply a statement that will put those poor people into debt they will never rid themselves of.
Just imagine if you were poor and decided to go to university and you were convinced that the arts is a good option. If you are good at arts you may just decide to do it. Then 8k a year of debt starts adding up then you get out with a bachelors degree and no job. Then when you do get one it did not require your degree and you end up having to pay off all this money that you spent on schooling that did nothing for you.
If you think that an education, happiness, life is only about dollars and cents and net worth, then I’m so very very sorry for you my friend.
What are the first things that any good totalitarian regime does when it gets in power? Burn the books. Pay off or kill the artists. Create propaganda and remove people’s imagination and hope. Cut them off from having critical thought.
Arts, humanities, and education as a whole (including the sciences) are about much more than simply getting a job that pays well. It’s about exploring our universe both outside and in. Arts propel society forward just as much as technology can. Just watch or read pretty much any sort of biography of a famous scientist.
Sometimes this exploration of the universe manifests itself into the internet. Sometimes it manifests itself as somebody onstage experiencing the profound sadness that maybe the astrophysicist in the audience felt, and this play kept him from killing himself because he now knows that someone else in the world feels this way too, and there’s comfort in that. Hooray.
You cannot deny that humans experience complex emotion and thought processes. It is our right as humans to be able to explore this emotion and this thought, what makes us intrinsically HUMAN. It is, of course, also our right as humans to explore what exactly we can do with this universe we have around us. Unfortunately our society does not place as much value in this.
Cycles of poverty exist and it is typically those privileged people who have been able to take this kind of education. We could get into a discussion about how this cycle of poverty is deeply entrenched in our society due to unequal distribution of power and people of “divine right” giving their money to the scientists who could make them more money,
But now picture this, you were poor and decided to go to university, and chose sciences because that earns more money. You hated every last second of it but you went on anyway. You get a stable job, you start a family, and now your son or daughter is going to university and they are terrible at sciences and hate them but are pretty great and find enjoyment in their arts classes. What would you rather have them choose?
And by the way. For every scientifically minded person out there, there is someone who thinks creatively. Someone who is able to translate the pure information into something appealing and easy to read because they have put years into studying how humanity functions and automatically creates meaning and emotional response from everything they see (which has all been verified by science, yay teamwork).
Another thing science has proven is that if you’re happier, you’re healthier. Even if you’re not that wealthy. So really, you should just do what you want in the end. I think that’s what the original poster is really trying to get at. It would just be great if everyone had health care.
Granted, another great thing one learns in the arts is that there’s an exception to every rule. Chaos rules. Art cannot exist without science, science cannot exist without art. People want to do what they want to do. Humans are human and the sky is blue. At least is in my world, yours seems pretty sad and I don’t want to go there.
“Arts students are pursuing degrees that are just as relevant as yours, and make just as much if not more of a “lasting difference in the world and to human progress”.” internet and spacecraft are a lasting differences made by science and there is the claim (that you deny exists) that arts can have more of an impact.
Yeah, it can impact things in different ways because the world doesn’t revolve around your degree!
ofcourse there are other useful degrees. the vast majority of them are useful. However with that there are useless ones aswell.
again what authority do you have on anything to deem a degree useless? Such arrogance can only come from ignorance
the usefulness of a degree is easy to determine. What job does it help attain, how does it further society and will it be reliable financially.
Hey super sorry to let you know, no one died and made you god of degrees. If that’s what matters in a degree to you, that’s great. But seriously take this advice, stay in your own lane.
This statement doesn’t imply that art degrees have more of an impact than science degrees. It is a defence against those who arrogantly sprout the belief that art degrees are worthless or inferior to science degrees. It is important to read things with context.
You may want to re-read it then because it is obviously asserting that art makes just as much or more of an impact on human progress.
Cause it can? Is this actually that hard to deal with?
you two love to say it can yet no matter how many times i ask for evidence you refuse to give it.
Well if you even read my reply that would help. But why would anyone waste breath finding an example that caters to your own personal definition of what deserves respect? It doesn’t need to be validated.
“It doesn’t need to be validated.” That, that right there is the reason people look down on the arts. the idea that we should accept something as beneficial without evidence is the exact kind of backwards thinking that people oppose.
I mean I did give you “evidence” you conveniently ignored but aight whatever you say
mind letting me know which post you claim has evidence or better yet, repost as a direct reply to this comment so there is no way to overlook it
are you referring to the post where you mention different social SCIENCES (which is in no way what the article was talking about) and use that as a claim that arts can be more beneficial than sciences?
when did i say anything deserves respect? I dont think any point I make, you make or anyone else makes deserves respect. If a view offends you then thats the greatest thing in the world. It is something to be encouraged not pushed away. I am as against “safe spaces” as i possibly could be. Without debating with those of other opinions there is absolutely no way to further your own views.
Like I said it is a defence against those who say it doesn’t. What is wrong with saying art degrees make just as much impact on human progress as science degrees especially when its a true statement
“it seemed stupid to ignore something that I knew I loved and was good at in order to obtain a “more useful” degree.” is word for word what the article states yet you make a claim that nobody would choose a topic in university because they enjoy it regardless of it not being useful.
In the same article, it was stated that there might be people who genuinely loved these programs. I guess you chose to read only part of it.
even if they love the program that doesnt make it any more viable
First of all that’s embarrassing you’re confusing fine arts with liberal arts.
Second, that’s a silly ass question. Literally read any history book. Theorizing about the natural laws of the universe is philosophy. Naturalist philosophy is what you have to thank for the modern scientific method. Read up. Humanity is more than technology and that’s something you grapple with in the liberal arts. It’s your own fault you limit your definition of productivity to such a narrow vision of achievements. If that’s what you find interesting in the history of mankind that’s awesome and they’re amazing, but don’t belittle the rest cause you’re not the one who determines what matters. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you want to actually look up what a BA offers that could help. Sociology, economics, anthropology, city planning, statistics, criminology, forensics. Fields that use stats, math, technology, methodologies. But like, fuck all that right? Who cares about actual critical thinking or any form of applicable knowledge if it’s not in STEM fields right?
so in other words arts is only only beneficial when you merge it with the sciences?
woosh. good luck man.
looked up the examples you mentioned and it seems that the majority of universities dont put that in their arts departments (atleast here in canada, I don’t know about other countries).
and the ones that do put it into the arts AND social sciences. They specifically separate the two in the title.
“Economics, I didn’t really care about Finance, and I wasn’t interested in Business at all.” The poster listed those as the kinds of things everyone thinks are useful but not her arts degree. that quote in context beside your post shows that what you are calling Arts is not what the original poster meant by it.
Just because you graduate with a Bachelor of Arts, doesn’t mean you can’t learn things from other disciplines. I graduated with a BA and have a very successful job due to the skills I gained from volunteering and getting involved with student organizations. As long as individuals learn how to market all of the skills they learn outside of the classroom at university, they can succeed in the job market and pay off any debt they accumulate. I paid off my student loan within a year of graduating. Does the work I’m doing now necessarily relate to what I spent 4 years studying? No. Did the other experiences throughout my 4 year degree help me get a job that I love? Yes. So like the article says, your judgement of arts students is shortsighted.