Art Degrees are a Scam

Wasted Money, Wasted Time, Wasted Potential

University is seen as the guaranteed road to success.

Put in the effort and the time and you’ll come out with a degree and enough proof that potential employers will look upon you favorably.

For some professions it is a barrier to entry for good reason, people without degrees in medicine should not be practicing medicine, so to speak.

For some professions, it will uplift real experience. A business degree can be very beneficial to a small business owner or franchiser.

But what about creative professions?

Fine Art as a Qualification

There are areas in the visual art world that require more education than others.

For example, if you want to be an auctioneer or the kind of person that determines the value or heritage of an art piece, you have to be able to actually recognise the difference between art periods, the type of pigments used to create the painting, what kind of cloth the canvas is etc.

Being a curator requires a similar but less intensive education, you might be able to get a job as a curator without a degree or qualification if you can nail an interview and provide accurate predictions, or if you are simply able to study up on the pieces enough to pass the job requirements.

Even some people have been hired in the past for restoration projects with zero checks on their ability to restore anything, I’m sure many of us have seen the horror photos of doomed restoration projects cycling the internet.

For each of these job positions, you can argue quite soundly why an education would be beneficial.

It was the original reasoning I used to determine the value of my own Fine Arts Degree that I applied for as a wee teen.

I wanted to learn as much as possible about the field I loved so much, even if a major part of my goal was my own artistic progression.

University as an Institution

I got half way through the second year of my Fine Arts Bachelor before having a significant breakdown.

There were many contributing factors.

My university allowed me to be discriminated against for having a disability.

My university allowed my own property and designated art space to be violated, my designated safety cabinet, which was padlocked, to be broken into, re-padlocked and used by a different student.

That was the final straw, after requesting assistance they told me there was nothing they could do.

Without considering the money I will be paying back for the rest of my life on this stupid fine arts degree; the amount of money I spent on supplies (extra supplies that I was told would be crucial to have on day 1), the amount I spent on transport back and forth and how much I spent going to events that would “show my participation and dedication”, totals over $5000.

But, aside from the despicable way this institution acted towards me, what about the course structure, what about the degree itself?

Art Course Structure and My Experience

Something else that was especially rude and crummy was the university’s decision to completely change their course outline while I was deferring, which meant that the course I originally signed up for was no longer available to the students starting the following year.

Had I known this in advance I never would have allowed myself to defer.

Alas.

I qualified for this bachelors and I wanted to be successful so I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

It was a disorganised nightmare.

Years were now split into Trimesters, there were 4 main courses we had to take over the first 2 trimesters.

Drawing Foundations, Studio Foundations, Still and Moving Images OR Stop Motion Animation, and Art Theory.

Drawing foundations covered everything to do with drawing principles, it was managed by a professional and recognized artist and it was by far the best course available at the school.

The subject was given 11 entire weeks of dedicated education and practice, had its own gigantic studio spaces with ample space for everyone and the lecturer was managing speaking with everyone individually.

Studio foundations, on the very grubby other hand, was a joke.

It was split into 6 subjects; Photography, Painting, Sculpture, Indigenous Art Studies, Print Making and Jewellery.

For the 12 weeks of the first trimester you had to study and complete 3 subjects.

This was broken into an 8 hour lesson each week.

Lesson 1 this is the subject.

Lesson 2 learn this thing.

Lesson 3 this is the assignment do it.

Lesson 4 not a lesson we get a bonus lecture, a bonus assignment with no credit, and have to present our work in front of our peers one by one which usually goes for around 3 hours or more.

I cannot stress enough how mortified I was by trying to learn photography, something I was entirely unfamiliar with, in the span of 24 collective hours of instruction, and thats being exceptionally generous.

Not only were the courses short and stressful, the professors or educators of the subjects were clearly annoyed and resentful of the university for the choice to squish everything other than drawing into a single subject.

Space was compromised so that the drawing students had more room, which pushed other subjects into rooms that weren’t suited.

The educators were also managing their 2nd year and 3rd year students on top of those doing their masters.

It felt clear to most of us that the professors had very little interest in our courses or any of the first year students for that matter.

Subjects were also cast into conceptual education vs technical education in this weird unspoken sense.

While photography class focused on composition and taking the best shot, I was trying to turn on my camera.

While painting focused on the colour wheel, I was left unsure how to approach composition.

While printing focused on the process, I somehow failed the subject focus despite being told I was doing everything technically correct.

Sculpture focused on collage and making objects out of trash, and not in a good way. I was definitely disappointed at “everything is sculpture”.

If I go into the issues with the other two subjects I’ll never finish this article.

So Studio Foundations was an utter mess.

What about Art Theory?
I adored the lectures, I adored the research, I adored all the subjects we followed.

But the assignments and readings made me want to cry.

For anyone who has not read an artist reading, I’m not sure if you will understand the struggle.
We spent so much of the subject focusing on the interpretations of other artists or artistic writers, and the way they write is barely readable.

Its like reading a puzzle, sometimes I had to say the words very slowly out loud in a row or write them out to try to understand what the author was saying.

Ever seen those ridiculous academic papers that are shared around on the internet? Yeah that shit.

It was agonizing to read, and on reading it we had to analyse it and provide insight in the class.

While I retain most knowledge about the artists we covered, the artist readings are a blur.

No one liked it, no one seemed very good at it, and everyone was constantly being told that if they didn’t do the readings they wouldn’t do well in the exams or assignments.

Which brings me to group assignments.

I will always swear on my life that group assignments are just a crock of shit designed to make it harder to graduate. Or at the very least, they are in art theory.

I was grouped with 2 photography students, we were doing an assignment on the variations of paintings centered around Venus.

One of the students didn’t want to meet at all to discuss it, we only managed to meet once in person, and the other photography student proceeded to edit and change the entire written document to suit herself.

As a photography student, she used incorrect language when writing for a painting critique, and if that wasn’t bad enough she told our teacher she had not edited my own section of the essay and I got told as the one Visual Arts student in the group I should have known better.

This is what group assignments do, force someone to be the scapegoat.

Then there was still and moving images, something I deeply struggled with was anything computers or digital so I made my best effort to show up and listen and follow along as best I could.

We didn’t get the basics. Many of the art students dropped out or changed courses. We were instructed to delve into group work and self driven work before we knew what we were doing software or photography wise.

It was photography all over again, and I barely passed.

I ended up completing an additional subject in the Third Trimester, a wonderful subject on art history with regards to impact on sex, gender and identity, and then I was on to my 2nd Year.

I was finally able to major in painting, choose drawing as my 2nd subject and I was keeping up with art theory.

Alas.

Our painting teacher was terrible at communicating with students, I was technically capable but I had no idea what to do with it.

His advice was to look at other artists, which I had.

I simply had no idea how to do what was required of me conceptually, and I never got any feedback that was actually concrete on where I was going wrong, what I was missing.

I ended up dropping drawing, it was too demanding to do at the same time as painting, so I decided I would do part time studies focusing on just Painting and Theory.

Theory once again required us to split into groups.

We were left in odd numbers, with people being left out and very much feeling isolated, which was when the lecturers pushed people together and I ended up with a member short along with another group.

My group member didn’t even want to acknowledge me despite my efforts, she didn’t turn up for the first 5 weeks and I kept asking for assistance on this issue from staff.

They told me the group assignment would start in the next 2 weeks and to bother them about it then (despite the content for that assignment being relevant from session 1).

Week 7 rolls around and I am notified that my group member has dropped the course. I was told I had to do the full assignment alone. I wasn’t the only one this happened to either.

Then the final straw.

I was sick for a few weeks and coming in to the studio only once a week.

One day I come in and my art is on the floor in a pile of other “trash”, my locker had its padlock removed and replaced with a different one and my easel had been dumped behind a random door.

My art supplies were stolen, my pictures ripped down, and the painting department refused to do anything about it.

It was in that moment that I realised, I could not do this anymore.

Life as a Drop Out

I was practically killing myself trying to do this degree.

How could I be doing so poorly in my favourite subject and the one thing I was good at?

I kept pushing, kept trying to believe that doing this degree was good and worth it, but after my studio space was broken into, destroyed and stolen from, how was I meant to keep going?

There’s only so much you can take.

I suffered a major quarter-life crisis when I dropped out.

For about 3 months, most of what I did was lie in bed playing video games, watching cartoons, smoking weed and crying my frikin guts out.

I felt like I had finally showed everyone how incapable and stupid I was.

I walked out of this degree with zero connections, zero friends, zero experience and practically no relevant education.

I walked out of this degree with debt and wasted time.

However, after falling into my depression spiral and having a nice cup of tea with the abyss, I noticed the growing number of visual artists on social media.

Visual artists who had no academic experience.

Watching YouTube more I noticed that artists were making a decent amount from their channel and through investigating further I found that getting a degree was far from what you were required to do to make it as an artist.

Just some of the many sketchbooks I’ve completed since leaving my art degree.

Art is Something Anyone Can Do

I decided to try illustration art, because I wanted to create things I didn’t have to think too hard on like “Is the colour a good representation of the tone of the concept?”, all I had to think about was “Is it cute?”.

Watching more YouTube videos I learnt about art and prompt challenges that people do online and decided to try that.

It was through that challenge that I started to see my own weaknesses and strengths, and through comparing my work to others who did the same challenges I could think about the kinds of concepts I was presenting and why I chose those concepts.

I started to realise what I loved drawing and what I didn’t love so much, I noticed I was drawn to portraiture so I let myself, I noticed I was drawn to surreal themes, so I followed the instinct.

Above all else I persisted, I kept drawing, kept pushing, kept uploading, kept finding challenges.

I kept educating myself.

Art as a Career

Its hard being a freelance artist, I’m not going to lie.

You need funds, you need spirit, above all you need a drive to never ever stop.

Over the last 6 years I have worked endlessly to attempt to make art that resonates with people, that has style and impact, that is meaningful and fun.

And I don’t think I nail it every time.

I know some people actively dislike the kind of art I make, and that can be difficult to swallow.

But art and creative careers aren’t the same as other jobs.

Art isn’t a 9 to 5, its a 24 hour thing.

Its not something you put down or set aside just because its 6pm and we’re having dinner now, you’ll find yourself staring into the plate thinking “I wonder what colour that is….if I painted this would I paint it as it is? If I move this potato does the image become more balanced?” truly nightmarish stuff.

Art is kinda…a way of life.

I can tell you exactly why my art is technically sound, and I can explain why it is conceptually valid, even if you hate it.

That’s not really the same with a medical diagnosis, or a piece of coding, or even flipping a burger.

If the burgers burnt, its burnt.

If my artwork is a literal painting of poop, it is still art.

Furthermore, many artists go on to get them big bucks and they have never set foot in an academic environment.

The people I saw who benefited most from the degree, came from wealth as a young person, came from wealth as an older person, or already knew everything they needed to to succeed and a degree was just proof of that.

Pretty much everyone I knew not in that criteria dropped out by the second year.

Art Degrees are classist, over expensive, gambles.

All you need is passion, something to create with, something to create on, and time.

Remember, Van Gogh was dismissed from Art School, he was seen as a failure for much of his life. He is idolised and celebrated today as a great master.

I wonder how those who dismissed him would justify it today?