Why do people ignore/shit on arts degrees ? (1 Viewer)

nerdasdasd

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I hear that a lot of the time people criticise arts degrees or say that it leads to no job opportunities.
 

Confound

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I don't really know why except the apparent lower level of employability (I haven't done any research on this, just from what I've heard).

Imo all academic efforts should be respected equally
 

Sinyeta

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My teacher said you can't do anything with an arts degree and you wont get employed. You will become a beggar.
 

Chronost

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Because it doesn't teach you specific knowledge that relates to any job in particular. It's really broad and it's majors are fairly unemployable expect for the skills you learn from them (which can be learnt at the sametime from a more job-orientated degree). At a time when it's already competitive enough for people applying jobs with degrees that are similar/same field, art degrees do you no good.

There's plenty of threads on this already, and they all gave good discussion on both sides, you should know how to search threads Nerd.
 
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malcolm21

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Cut art people some slack, even Hitler failed to pass art school
 

Rhinoz8142

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But isn't art valuable when it is a double degree , right ?
 
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isildurrrr1

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its a degree to "broaden" your horizons and attain more theoretical/observational level of knowledge. Dw too much, science kids get fucked on as well unless they go onto PhD levels :p

With arts just pick the shit you are interested in because that's the entire point of a humanities degree. People shit on arts people but I bet they don't give a fuck when someone goes to a hot-shit school like Harvard or Duke to study classics or literature.

End of the day most people don't even enter the fields that they study in the first place.

If you want to do something that gets you a job, do a technical/professional degree or better yet go to TAFE and do an apprenticeship.
 

isildurrrr1

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Protip: can't find a job in aussie? go to murika where everyone has a BA or BS. They only got those two degrees and split everything into majors :p If you want something employable with just an arts degree, just do a double major in the business shit then.
 

enoilgam

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To be honest, this is a by product of institutionalised ignorance and misconceptions from uni/HS students. It's true that Arts degrees don't provide you with much in the way of a specialisation or hard skills, but they do provide you with a broad skill set which can be applied to many jobs. What people often forget is that in this day and age, graduate programs only exist for a few fields and they are getting more and more sparse. So most people are going for entry level jobs which often require a "tertiary degree" of any kind or no degree at all. A degree comes in handy later on in your career. So, a lot of people have career paths which look something like this:

1) Entry Level role (in something like sales or admin) - These roles may require a degree, but more often than not they will just require some form of tertiary qualifications.

2) Specialisation - A person will focus on a specific area at which point they may identify a training need to progress further. For example, an admin person may decide to move into an admin focused Supply Chain role. At that point, they may decide to go for a Diploma/GradCert to get qualified in the field.

3) Senior Role - With the new qualification and an existing degree, they can progress in the field. Often times Senior/Management roles in certain fields will require you to have a degree and formal qualifications. Even with an Arts degree followed by a specific qualification, you will meet the criteria to progress.

So an Arts degree isnt really a waste, your entry into the work world will just take a different route to say something like Accounting or Finance, which are driven by grad programs and cadetships.
 

enoilgam

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enoilgam has spoken
To be honest, I thought an Arts degree was useless when I was at uni as well. It wasnt until I worked for a large company that I began to see how institutionalised uni/HS thinking is when it comes to jobs and the work world.
 

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