6 ms·

Does art school make a person a better artist? I would argue not really -- especially in a day in age where so much advanced art instruction is available for fr

by hajile 7y ago

Does art school make a person a better artist? I would argue not really -- especially in a day in age where so much advanced art instruction is available for free. When a company or person wants to commission you, do they look at your degree or your portfolio? The only real benefit of art college is more contacts to sell on your personality. $300,000 for that $75,000/yr college is a huge marketing budget for someone not proven to be a success. That money would be much better spent establishing an art studio and working on a portfolio. At least if they aren't very successful, some of the loss can be recovered. The same idea goes for most art degrees in one form or another.

criddell 7y ago
> Does art school make a person a better artist? It certainly isn't automatic but a motivated student can get a lot out of the experience.
gen220 7y ago
My girlfriend and I have had this discussion a lot, because she went to a top tier art school. I think you might be underrating three factors in your reasoning: One is the value of very direct feedback and guidance from seasoned, respected professionals. The class sizes in top art programs are very small, and most classes have a frequent, intense “critique” portion where the professor and students tear apart each others’ work. It’s like 3 years of intense code review from other talented programmers, led by a staff engineer. It’s hard to put a sticker price on this, because you largely get out what you put in, but it’s immense and I’d argue unique to a top tier art school. The second is that you’re living in a high pressure environment of professors and peers who always seem to be pushing you to be better in some dimension. It’s not conducive for everyone, but if you have a strong competitive drive, it can make you very productive. Finally, the fundamentals in design and art are insanely important. My girlfriend took 4 semesters of typography, because the ROI there is legitimately defensible. Most people skip this stuff when they’re self teaching, and it shows to people who know better. You’re right that portfolios are of paramount importance, but good companies will make you defend your portfolio pieces, and ask you what you’d do differently with different constraints or resources. An art school training will humble you to the idea that there is another way, and arm you with ideas for alternative solutions. It’s subtle, but it comes out in interviews and on the job. I’d argue it’s similar to software engineering in that way.
- pnathan 7y ago
  I sometimes wonder about rpg's notion of a MFA in programming. I think it'd be very valuable - there's a lot of crossover between art and programming, I think.
- hajile 7y ago
  I think survivorship bias and the need to justify the education necessarily clouds judgement. If there's one thing the internet has taught me, it's that finding legitimate critique about anything is easy and cheap -- just put it out there and ask. There are lots of online art communities that can do this job very well. High-pressure environments may benefit some people, but people with that kind of drive are likely to push themselves anyway. Plus, an actual commissioned project is way more pressure than any professor could add (at least to me) Since the principles of art and design don't really change, they can be provided cheaply and easily just as you can find free (and very good) resources on basically every fundamental of programming. $300,000 paid over a staggering 20 years at 7% interest is $560,000 by the time you're done and you're on the hook for over $2300 every single month or around $28,000 in student loan payments every single year. (note: these numbers are from salary.com which gives the highest income of all sites I looked at) The average artist salary seems to be $45,000 to $55,000 per year. 90th percentile salary is only around $72,000. If you're an average artist, more than 50% of your GROSS salary goes toward your student loan and even if you are top-tier, you still wind up paying 39% of your gross toward your loans. Even as an art manager, at 88k at the 50th percentile and 125k at the 90th percentile (not something you're likely to be doing with zero experience), you're going to be in a very tough situation until your mid-40s and that's assuming you don't want to have a family. In contrast, a low-level HVAC tech makes about as much out the gate without all the debt. A high-level tech makes 62k on average (76 at 90th percentile) while that manager position 72k on average (92k at 90th percentile). An apprenticeship is generally free, but even if you wanted to go to your local community college, you'd be 10-15k out the door at the upper-end. That would be less than $120/mo over 20 years and less than $300/mo over 5 years. Even a 25th percentile artist will make as much without a degree at 47k per year will be making about as much as a 90th percentile 72k per year paying out 28k every year. Investing the extra 4k every year you save over paying for that degree with a mild 5% ROI gives almost 80k saved for retirement by your mid 40s when your student-loan person is just breaking even. If you've managed to learn the rest of those fundamentals sometime over that last 20 years, you're going to beat that college education by a much larger margin. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/artist-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/artist-sala... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/art-manager-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/art-manager... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/hvac-installation-technician-i-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/hvac-instal... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-mechanic-iii-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-mechan... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-supervisor-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-superv...
snowwrestler 7y ago
Art creates meaning within contexts. It's certainly possible to learn to reason about context working on your own, but formal schooling forces you to do so and ensures it happens. From my own experience hiring designers, those with formal schooling in art tend to make better creative leaders, like managers or creative directors.

by hajile 7y ago

criddell 7y ago

> Does art school make a person a better artist? It certainly isn't automatic but a motivated student can get a lot out of the experience.

gen220 7y ago

My girlfriend and I have had this discussion a lot, because she went to a top tier art school. I think you might be underrating three factors in your reasoning: One is the value of very direct feedback and guidance from seasoned, respected professionals. The class sizes in top art programs are very small, and most classes have a frequent, intense “critique” portion where the professor and students tear apart each others’ work. It’s like 3 years of intense code review from other talented programmers, led by a staff engineer. It’s hard to put a sticker price on this, because you largely get out what you put in, but it’s immense and I’d argue unique to a top tier art school. The second is that you’re living in a high pressure environment of professors and peers who always seem to be pushing you to be better in some dimension. It’s not conducive for everyone, but if you have a strong competitive drive, it can make you very productive. Finally, the fundamentals in design and art are insanely important. My girlfriend took 4 semesters of typography, because the ROI there is legitimately defensible. Most people skip this stuff when they’re self teaching, and it shows to people who know better. You’re right that portfolios are of paramount importance, but good companies will make you defend your portfolio pieces, and ask you what you’d do differently with different constraints or resources. An art school training will humble you to the idea that there is another way, and arm you with ideas for alternative solutions. It’s subtle, but it comes out in interviews and on the job. I’d argue it’s similar to software engineering in that way.

pnathan 7y ago
I sometimes wonder about rpg's notion of a MFA in programming. I think it'd be very valuable - there's a lot of crossover between art and programming, I think.
hajile 7y ago
I think survivorship bias and the need to justify the education necessarily clouds judgement. If there's one thing the internet has taught me, it's that finding legitimate critique about anything is easy and cheap -- just put it out there and ask. There are lots of online art communities that can do this job very well. High-pressure environments may benefit some people, but people with that kind of drive are likely to push themselves anyway. Plus, an actual commissioned project is way more pressure than any professor could add (at least to me) Since the principles of art and design don't really change, they can be provided cheaply and easily just as you can find free (and very good) resources on basically every fundamental of programming. $300,000 paid over a staggering 20 years at 7% interest is $560,000 by the time you're done and you're on the hook for over $2300 every single month or around $28,000 in student loan payments every single year. (note: these numbers are from salary.com which gives the highest income of all sites I looked at) The average artist salary seems to be $45,000 to $55,000 per year. 90th percentile salary is only around $72,000. If you're an average artist, more than 50% of your GROSS salary goes toward your student loan and even if you are top-tier, you still wind up paying 39% of your gross toward your loans. Even as an art manager, at 88k at the 50th percentile and 125k at the 90th percentile (not something you're likely to be doing with zero experience), you're going to be in a very tough situation until your mid-40s and that's assuming you don't want to have a family. In contrast, a low-level HVAC tech makes about as much out the gate without all the debt. A high-level tech makes 62k on average (76 at 90th percentile) while that manager position 72k on average (92k at 90th percentile). An apprenticeship is generally free, but even if you wanted to go to your local community college, you'd be 10-15k out the door at the upper-end. That would be less than $120/mo over 20 years and less than $300/mo over 5 years. Even a 25th percentile artist will make as much without a degree at 47k per year will be making about as much as a 90th percentile 72k per year paying out 28k every year. Investing the extra 4k every year you save over paying for that degree with a mild 5% ROI gives almost 80k saved for retirement by your mid 40s when your student-loan person is just breaking even. If you've managed to learn the rest of those fundamentals sometime over that last 20 years, you're going to beat that college education by a much larger margin. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/artist-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/artist-sala... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/art-manager-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/art-manager... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/hvac-installation-technician-i-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/hvac-instal... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-mechanic-iii-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-mechan... https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-supervisor-salary https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/hvac-superv...

snowwrestler 7y ago

Art creates meaning within contexts. It's certainly possible to learn to reason about context working on your own, but formal schooling forces you to do so and ensures it happens. From my own experience hiring designers, those with formal schooling in art tend to make better creative leaders, like managers or creative directors.