5 ms·

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:

by 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...
- Jd 7y ago
  What online art communities do you think give critique as well as professional art schools?
- gen220 7y ago
  “Survivorship” bias plays a role, but I think it’s unjust to chalk it up to just that. The statistics you’ve given are a convincing argument against “arts” in general, but “arts” is a huge range. If you’re graduating a top 5 arts school, you’re generally already in the top percentile, at which point the sample sizes are small and the variance is huge. The average ROI is very damning, but your choice of school plays a bit role in determining how “average” you are. I’m not arguing in favor of the average art school, I’m defending the ROI of the schools given as examples in the article (Pratt). That aside, responding to your specific points: Like a sibling comment implied, it’s not easy to find quality criticism on demand. I stand by this. It’s hard to tell until you’ve been in such an environment, but it really is an order of magnitude’s difference from what you can get online from strangers. Further, I sort of miscommunicated the value of the environment. It’s more that you’re seeing how other talented people come up with solutions that diverge from your own in fascinating ways. It’s high pressure because everybody is so good, that it demands you to learn and better yourself, not because of deadlines, etc. That was my bad. :P Finally, while the fundamentals are relatively constant, it’s hard to find them presented in a way that demands 4 semesters of self driven study. I stand by that point. But yeah, in conclusion I totally agree with the statistics that the average art degree isn’t worth it. The average art position doesn’t require a top 5 degree. The positions that do are remunerative to the extent that they are worth it, in our experience. Finally, not everyone pays the sticker price; in fact, few people (mostly the very wealthy) do.
itronitron 7y ago
So yeah, I graduated from a top-tier art school which had very high tuition but I also had considerable grants and scholarships so I was able to pay off my student loans in a few years after graduating working a blue-collar job. I experienced four years of group critiques, and really value that as an activity. Unfortunately very few people understand or can appreciate how directly that maps to software development. My two cents, guidance counselors just need to shut the fuck up when it comes to talking with high-school students. There is so little knowledge about what different careers actually entail that I think it is impossible for high-school students to make informed decisions about what they want to focus on. While I think getting a BFA was the right choice for me I also think that the school environment could have been much more beneficial and productive than it was (mostly due to students in other majors being disruptive due to their drinking and partying during the week.)
- gen220 7y ago
  I really wish we had something comparable to group critiques in my computer science/engineering program. I wholeheartedly agree that it’s an underrated form of education: it allows everyone to benefit from everyone else’s talents and experiences, whereas the traditional lecture format is limited to the talent and the experience of the instructor. I was really jealous of that aspect of my girlfriend’s education. Some companies and incubators (recurse center?) are really good at creating this kind of learning, but I don’t know of many traditional universities experimenting with this approach at either the BS or MS level; which IMO a shame. Also, the skill of receiving and responding constructively to criticism is incredibly underrated, and is something that the good art schools seem to be unusually good at. The way my girlfriend tells it, it was a tortuous time (for many of the reasons you describe), but it was also very formative and it accelerated her growth dramatically.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    I think some of the more recent 'design thinking' schools are coming close. A key element in critiques is that everyone has pretty much the same role (they are creating something and getting feedback on it) so no one is trying to game the system for personal career advancement. It could be adapted to CS/E classes where students were creating something new and most Art professors could probably help run them. There is a definite discipline and culture to running good group critiques.

by gen220 7y ago

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...

Jd 7y ago
What online art communities do you think give critique as well as professional art schools?
gen220 7y ago
“Survivorship” bias plays a role, but I think it’s unjust to chalk it up to just that. The statistics you’ve given are a convincing argument against “arts” in general, but “arts” is a huge range. If you’re graduating a top 5 arts school, you’re generally already in the top percentile, at which point the sample sizes are small and the variance is huge. The average ROI is very damning, but your choice of school plays a bit role in determining how “average” you are. I’m not arguing in favor of the average art school, I’m defending the ROI of the schools given as examples in the article (Pratt). That aside, responding to your specific points: Like a sibling comment implied, it’s not easy to find quality criticism on demand. I stand by this. It’s hard to tell until you’ve been in such an environment, but it really is an order of magnitude’s difference from what you can get online from strangers. Further, I sort of miscommunicated the value of the environment. It’s more that you’re seeing how other talented people come up with solutions that diverge from your own in fascinating ways. It’s high pressure because everybody is so good, that it demands you to learn and better yourself, not because of deadlines, etc. That was my bad. :P Finally, while the fundamentals are relatively constant, it’s hard to find them presented in a way that demands 4 semesters of self driven study. I stand by that point. But yeah, in conclusion I totally agree with the statistics that the average art degree isn’t worth it. The average art position doesn’t require a top 5 degree. The positions that do are remunerative to the extent that they are worth it, in our experience. Finally, not everyone pays the sticker price; in fact, few people (mostly the very wealthy) do.

itronitron 7y ago

So yeah, I graduated from a top-tier art school which had very high tuition but I also had considerable grants and scholarships so I was able to pay off my student loans in a few years after graduating working a blue-collar job. I experienced four years of group critiques, and really value that as an activity. Unfortunately very few people understand or can appreciate how directly that maps to software development. My two cents, guidance counselors just need to shut the fuck up when it comes to talking with high-school students. There is so little knowledge about what different careers actually entail that I think it is impossible for high-school students to make informed decisions about what they want to focus on. While I think getting a BFA was the right choice for me I also think that the school environment could have been much more beneficial and productive than it was (mostly due to students in other majors being disruptive due to their drinking and partying during the week.)

gen220 7y ago
I really wish we had something comparable to group critiques in my computer science/engineering program. I wholeheartedly agree that it’s an underrated form of education: it allows everyone to benefit from everyone else’s talents and experiences, whereas the traditional lecture format is limited to the talent and the experience of the instructor. I was really jealous of that aspect of my girlfriend’s education. Some companies and incubators (recurse center?) are really good at creating this kind of learning, but I don’t know of many traditional universities experimenting with this approach at either the BS or MS level; which IMO a shame. Also, the skill of receiving and responding constructively to criticism is incredibly underrated, and is something that the good art schools seem to be unusually good at. The way my girlfriend tells it, it was a tortuous time (for many of the reasons you describe), but it was also very formative and it accelerated her growth dramatically.
- itronitron 7y ago
  I think some of the more recent 'design thinking' schools are coming close. A key element in critiques is that everyone has pretty much the same role (they are creating something and getting feedback on it) so no one is trying to game the system for personal career advancement. It could be adapted to CS/E classes where students were creating something new and most Art professors could probably help run them. There is a definite discipline and culture to running good group critiques.