Art Degrees are Real Degrees.

Growing up, my least favorite thing to hear as a “creative type” was that art wasn’t as important as other subjects and, when I became an art major in college, that art “isn’t a career” and that an art degree is “not a real degree.”

In college, I would often hear other students say they were taking art classes “just for an art credit” and that they actually thought it was "bullshit” that they had to take the course at all because, of course, they thought that art classes weren’t as important as whatever subject they were majoring in, and some went so far as to think that art majors were lazy people looking to get an easy degree.

I hate hearing all of this even more now that I have had a BFA in Studio Art for 3 years.

I will be the first to admit that, before I started majoring in art, I thought the only way to be successful was to get a business degree, or a science degree, or a degree in ANYTHING except the arts; I thought this because everyone in my life was ALWAYS feeding me this lie. I had always been drawn to more creative things, like making music and writing and taking photos, and I think a lot of people saw this and thought they were doing me a favor by saying “those are just hobbies; you need to work hard to get a REAL degree so you can get a REAL job making REAL money.” They thought that, by telling me that degrees in the arts weren’t “real,” it would make me want to choose something more “real,” like business.

Which is what I did, until I learned that I liked photography and art history more than finance and macroeconomics.

There is a common misconception floating around out there that art degrees are all about teaching you how to draw, paint, sculpt, or take pretty pictures without teaching any useable life skills. However, I am here to tell you that this a fallacy.

One of my best friends from college, Sam, double-majored in biology and studio art, and, when I asked him how he felt about arts majors versus other majors, he told me:

“While earning a BFA in studio art and BS in biology, I personally found the art to be significantly more work than the biology, but that says more about me than about the programs. I had friends in each program that struggled to pass the introductory classes from the other program for general education requirements. So I can't take the idea that one degree is harder than the other seriously. Difficulty varies from person to person, for any task. Some might argue that it's utility, not difficulty, that makes one degree more valid than another. And I can see how the utility of biology would be more obvious, but I'd challenge anyone who doubts the importance of artists to imagine going a month without using or looking at anything designed by an artist. It's probably not something you could realistically do, but it would be a bleak experience.”

Earning my BFA taught me how to give and take criticism, how to communicate my ideas and express my views in an effective way, how to collaborate, and how to stand up for myself and my beliefs; it taught me how to view the world around me with kinder eyes and an open heart, how to enjoy the little things around me, how to care for and listen to others, how to have fun, and, most importantly, how to unashamedly be myself in a world that often encourages us to fit one particular idea of what it means to be a person.

All this to say — stop telling people art degrees are not real degrees. Stop telling your artistically-inclined kids not to get degrees in art, theatre, and music because they are “useless” and will make them “poor” the rest of their lives. There are so many cool things out there you can do with degrees in the arts (in fact, here are 38 of them); I am not saying you won’t have to work hard to get these careers, but I am saying that your degree will not be a hindrance unless you make it one.

As Sam pointed out, it is impossible to conceive a world without art — even our early Paleolithic ancestors painted in caves and made jewelry during their free time. So, next time you go to tell someone that “art is not a real degree,” think about the fact that little in this world would exist without the creative mind of an artist.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope that, wherever you are, and no matter what your beliefs, you are happy, healthy, and safe during this time.

I’ll be back next week with a year-end post. Until then, I wish you and yours all the best!

Peace be with you,

Kelsey

Photography: How and Why?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the blog! This space will be dedicated to sharing various photography-related content. You can feel free to send me an email on topics you would like for me to discuss by clicking “contact” at the top of the page and filling out the form or drop me a comment below — I am open to any suggestions you have!

Future posts will be more formal and less long-winded, but today, I want to sit down and share with you how I got into photography and why it captivated me enough for me to want to pursue a degree (and, hopefully, one day, a full-time career) in it.

How photography?

I don’t remember exactly when — maybe when I was 9 or 10 — my mother’s mother and her husband gave me my first point-and-shoot camera (which, funnily enough, I still have, and, yes, it still works!). This was, of course, back in the days of ye-old film photography, and I vividly remember the excitement of finishing a roll and my grandmother going to Wal-Mart to get it developed and printed. Most of the photographs weren’t very good, I’ll admit, but I did enjoy taking them, and this is what planted the first seed in my journey to becoming a photographer.

When I was 16, I had a history teacher who was also a photographer, and, for whatever reason, I showed her a few pictures I had taken with a point-and-shoot Nikon that my dad’s parents had gotten me for Christmas (again, I still have this camera), and she told me she thought that, with some instruction, I could be a pretty good photographer. This planted the second seed.

The third and final seed was planted during my Freshman year at Birmingham-Southern College. I began a work-study job in the Fine Arts Department, and my coordinator’s office was located in the art building and directly beside the photography professor’s office. Everyone talked about how amazing this professor was, and, as I got to know her, I knew that I wanted to take her introductory photography class. I also knew that this class was difficult to get into because, what can I say, my professor was in-demand, so I asked if she would be willing to sign me in during registration, and, kindly, she said yes.

Now, what you need to understand before I continue is that I went into college genuinely believing that I wanted a business degree because everyone said this was the thing to do if I wanted a job in the future. My first sign that this would not last, however, was when I insisted on using my Christmas money to purchase my own Nikon DSLR to use in class instead of borrowing one of the department’s cameras.

I was so excited for this class to start. So excited, in fact, that, being the impatient eager-beaver that I am, I started learning how to use all the various modes and functions on my dSLR in January before term started in February because there was no way I could let this magnificent machine I had spent $475 on sit around untouched until the digital unit of my class rolled around. This should have been my second sign that being a business major was not going to last.

We started off this introductory class with a film unit. During this segment, we shot on black-and-white film and learned how to process and print it ourselves. This process was both frustrating and thrilling to me. I started off not being very good at it — I, like many of my classmates, ruined several rolls of film and had several more turn out with a few usable images while the rest were blotchy from being incorrectly rolled onto the processing wheel — but, by the end, I wound up with a few winning rolls and a few winning images (again, some of which you will find on this site). We spent the second half of the semester on a digital unit, during which we learned how to use the cameras, how to use Photoshop to do basic enhancements, and how to print our photographs using professional printers. I continued to find success in this course and, to my excitement, my professor approached me (as she does all of the students who are not seniors and show potential in photography) to invite me to continue on into her upper-level courses.

The third sign that I would not continue as a business major came when I decided at the end of the semester to declare a minor in art. Looking back now, I knew in my heart that I wanted to do photography, but my head was still screaming that I needed to stick with business because, you know, the job thing. I began my Sophomore year taking an introductory art history class, which I loved, and Two-Dimensional Design (which I took with my photography professor because, yet again, she was willing to sign me in). It was at this time also that I took the introductory business class (which I had not been able to get into at all my Freshman year), and macro-economics. Though I enjoyed the professors, I was not entirely good at the classes, and I found them difficult to enjoy anyway because my head and heart tended to stay in my art and art history courses instead of in the business courses.

The following semester I took a course called “Photography: From Chemistry to Digital," and this was the class where I found what I loved. I struggled through it, and I was not always good at it, but this is where I found a true love for film photography and all that it offered. This was the course that encouraged me to try out all of the toy cameras that I love so much today — this was the course that shaped who I would become as a photographer. It was also in the middle of this semester that I officially changed my major to “Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art” and joined forces with an amazing group of artists who I am so lucky to call my friends and colleagues.

The rest of my time in college was, like the photography courses I mentioned earlier, not always easy, and, also as I mentioned earlier, I was not always good. I told myself (and, admittedly, still tell myself sometimes) that I was a bad photographer and would never make it. However, because I don’t know how to quit, I kept going. Why? Because, at the end of the day, photography gives me a purpose and a goal. One day, I want to pursue a graduate degree in photography so that I can become a professor and teach others to love photography as much as I do. I do photography because it is my way of showing everyone who I am and how I see the world around me. It is my way of keeping track of my life so that one day I can look back at the photographs and remind myself where I came from. It is my way of pouring my frustrations and joys and everything in-between into something constructive and beautiful, into something that I can share instead of always having it all locked inside.

Why photography?

Because, at the end of the day, it is my way of connecting both with myself and with everyone else, and that feeling of connection is the single most important factor in my life because, without it, what is the point of anything, anyway?