Yahoo! Education: If you're considering going back to school in hopes that you'll graduate to more opportunities, there are certain degrees that you might want to avoid.
Consider the National Association of Colleges and Employers' (NACE) 2012 Job Outlook study, which surveyed almost 1,000 employers on their future hiring plans. Many areas of study, such as fashion design and the performing arts, didn't even make the list.
4 comments:
This list befuddles me. It is completely false to say that the success rates in many of these fields are as low as this article is insinuating they are. And, as an aspiring theatre professional, I am of course rightfully angry that theatre shows up here. Maybe I don't believe it simply because I know of the success rates of Carnegie Mellon graduates as well as the work that the professors who teach here have done. It may be true that at some institutions theatre would be perceived as a less respectable option. But still, the training can take you anywhere . You don't have to remain in the theatre. What is learned at a place like CMU can be applied to many fields, and has been. This article should consider more possibilities than just the "usual" track before it makes such rash judgements.
As much as I trust Yahoo education as a source of all things education related, it does not address a few key points (many of which come from Joe Pino's discussion about collaboration). I'm not going to go into the fact that the theatre degree section only talks about acting because I'm sure we all realize that. What the article fails to realize is that many modern companies are spending thousands and thousands of dollars to introduce those same people with "useful" degrees skills that we theatrefolk acquire naturally through the method in which we work: collaboration. That skill requires much more time, money and patience to teach than the majority of job skills because nowadays, most corporate jobs are computer based, and involve a certain set of processes, just applied to a variety of industries. For this reason alone, a theatre degree is not a useless degree. Besides, someone has to run all those leadership and teamwork seminars.
Although I must say it is particularly difficult to find a job in the arts, or so it is said, I know so many people opting for business degrees simply out of rationality, rather than for any reason of passion and drive. I believe that each of us were put on this earth to do one specific thing, and by avoiding following a life's mission because it is "tough" and might not ensure a job in the future is not a good enough excuse to ditch it all together. What would happen if everyone was afraid of majoring in theater, fashion, or any of the mentioned degrees-- would we have the same type of entertainment industry? Would we have any outlet for the mass public at all? I think that it is not at all productive to scare truly talented people out of pursuing a degree in something that just they might have the lucky chance to make it big in. And I agree with Kassondra that a degree like this can take you into any field, as long as one is willing to use their degree to their advantage in the short-term while still keeping their eye on the more unrealistic mission that might take some more work, luck, and time in.
i saw this list and honestly find it to be complete crap. to say that a degree in theatre is the 3rd most useless degree is ridiculous. Most likely who ever came up with this list was looking at lowly CSUN or University of Nevada and saw that while other majors did well, their theatre programs weren't producing successful graduates. But look at CMU's theatre graduates who include people like a stage manager who is currently running O for Cirque du Soleil. Theatre is not for everyone and good theatre programs don't produce graduates by mass numbers and by that sandarac no theatre doesn't produce a vast number of successful graduates but those who do complete a top quality theatre major are far from useless
Post a Comment