Skills

VasiliyZaitzev · 2016-04-16T14:11:50+00:00

Hmm. Odd about the parents. If I had a kid who wanted a usable degree, I'd let him get one. If he wanted an arts degree, I'd say "Great. Get an arts degree. And here's what your double major/joint degree is going to be in, because money talks and bullshit rides the bus."

massageanest · 2016-04-16T07:36:33+00:00

An arts degree is useless if your work is shit. If you want to make a living with art your portfolio is the only thing that matters. Are you saying that you're a bad artist? Want to be a better artist? Do the work. Hard work trumps talent any day of the week.

I majored in art as well. If you want an honest opinion of your work send me a private message. I wouldn't post it here because dox?

MrEiffel · 2016-04-16T11:50:38+00:00

Well your degree is simply expensive toilet paper, good to look at but worthless shit in the marketplace.

Now do you HAVE any artistic skills? Like drawing?
=> visual artist
=> Graphic designer

Torrent the software, start building up a portfolio and clients through Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork. After a year of hard work you should have enough clients & references to either start your business or get into a company.

If you have NO artistic skills:

Learn an IT related language (Drupal, Python, CSS, etc..), there are dozens of sites with courses & free lessons.

Torrent the software, start building up a portfolio and clients through Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork. After a year of hard work you should have enough clients & references to either start your business or get into a company.

Or learn Sales.

beachbbqlover · 2016-04-16T15:39:22+00:00

I have an idea to help you develop skills that's related to arts and will help you not be a useless twat.

Build a paper mouche volcano today. Tomorrow go build a bottle boat with a motor and fan. The day after, build a kite from anything but wood and fabric and go fly it.

Okay? Now go build a WPS Vortexis wind turbine with aluminum blades. 0.5m wide and 1m high. Test it out. Wire it up to generate power.

Next? Build a DIY robot arm using 2x2 wood and a pair of motors.

Your goal is to rapidly and actually learn how to make virtually any random cool thing you can think up out of scrap. It's a skill perfect for an artist, and extremely valuable in real life.

ilovemagicmush · 2016-04-16T06:46:21+00:00

Ever considered a trade? Carpenter/plumber/electrician?

jayremedy · 2016-04-16T07:58:13+00:00

First mistake was letting your parents dictate your major.

InformalCriticism · 2016-04-16T13:29:30+00:00

Enlisted air force is pretty cushy for staying above water while you find out what you want to do with your life.

These days, I'd say since 2008, unless it's a hard science degree, you might as well pretend you don't have one, unless you go into graduate studies.

W_O_M_B_A_T · 2016-04-16T22:11:31+00:00

I on the other hand know how useless it is.

OK, hold on a second there.

There's a degree, and then there's specific skills. The degree is beneficial because it pads your resume and helps to get your foot in the door, lastly, it allows you more leverage to demand a higher salary up front. Don't underestimate it's usefulness in those respects.

However, the next step is do you actually have specific skills that are in demand? If you've got graphic design and/or editing abilities, that's a big start.

A college degree can help you get many such skills. It is not guarantee that there is demand for those skills, that's probably the biggest weakness of the US higher education.

However that's not to say that what you learn is useless either.

but they're old school in the sense that they think a degree = success.

They're from the era where Public Relations and marketing carved a major toehold in colleges. They believed the hype. For example "work smarter, not harder" implying that a degree removes the need to work hard to achieve anything.

Colleges are one of the most demand-sensitive industries out there, because the product they manufacture is completely intangible. Here's the secret here, if the student body got together and decided "we're only going to pay half our tuition" the college would be fucked! So they need to convince you that you're ignorant and powerless without them. They'd have to lay off most of their non-teaching staff. Colleges and professor's biggest concern is having a continued paycheck, no matter the relevance of their field of expertise. But it's an unspoken rule that you do not talk about this, just like you do not talk about fight club. As an "academic and educator" it's important to believe that you're above such concerns, but you aren't.

Therefore, it is mission #1 for a college to convince the public to believe that their "brand" has unquestionable value. And they go to pretty great lengths to do so.

The point of this is that colleges, on their own, have very little incentive to tell you that these skills are in demand and those skills are not. their incentive is to get you to enroll, pay tuition, and take any class offered regardless of usefulness, thus justifying the professor's paycheck.

BlackHeart89 · 2016-04-17T04:02:12+00:00

Lol shit bro. If it were that easy, people with shitty degrees wouldn't be having problems. I hope you built up some work experience while in school. You'll need it. And some good social skills.

I mean what can you actually do, art wise?

Title	Skills
Author	el_pildora_roja
Upvotes	5
Comments	14
Date	April 16, 2016 6:38 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/4f0u6r/skills/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/skills.104029 https://theredarchive.com/post/104029

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