It's a challenge to be in high school and feeling you are poised to make a decision that will determine the course of your entire life. In this episode I offer some perspective to a person in need.
I try to do my best to answer all emails people send me, especially those with pressing questions. If you'd like to write to me, my email is dannygregory@sketchbookskool.com
It's a challenge to be in high school and feeling you are poised to make a decision that will determine the course of your entire life. In this episode I offer some perspective to a person in need.
I try to do my best to answer all emails people send me, especially those with pressing questions. If you'd like to write to me, my email is dannygregory@sketchbookskool.com
welcome to art for all the sketchbook Skool podcast. I'm your host, Danny Gregory. I'm the author of a dozen or so books on art and creativity. And I'm a sketchbook artist. Occasionally I am an advice giver every so often. Somebody will send me. A question. Sometimes it pertains my shoe size or my favorite pen or some other pressing matter of importance. But occasionally it's a request for advice on how to make an artistic decision or overcome a creative block. I do my best to answer them responsibly.
Applicant:Hey, Danny. Just to not so quick question for you. We're in the middle of this whole looking for colleges thing and setting up visits and it's absolutely overwhelming me. I was told by an admissions Dean to find someone who's in the field that I want to go into. Maybe art, art, education, art therapy, I'm still deciding and come up with a list of questions that I can ask to these places that I want to visit to find the school with the best program, not just a good art program, but good at integrating art and teaching art. The two art teachers I have are at two opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a photography teacher that doesn't believe in going to school for art education, but just going to some art school for art, doing what you want all through college, bettering yourself and your art practice. And afterwards, maybe considering teaching, you know, after you've spent thousands of dollars on an educational ready. The other teacher is one of the nicest people. I know who's so busy just being a teacher, she has a family, she drives an SUV, but she doesn't even make art anymore. She doesn't draw. She's offered practicality and strictly the teaching aspect. I feel like these people aren't very much help and that they both have their own ideas of what being an art teacher is. And these ideas aren't mine. And after all this jib jab, my real question is, do you know any art teachers or professors or anything of the sort that can give me an idea of how to feel these schools out for a program that I'm looking for, how to narrow down the options? I realized that not knowing for sure what I want to do, doesn't help the situation, but I know I want to make art myself learn as much as I possibly can and do the best that I can and work with people in the public and make art mean as much to them as it does to me. If any of the above content made sense, your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Danny Gregory:All right. Dear college applicant, I guess I'll call you that because you asked me not to reveal your identity, Tiffany. I mean, I, and I won't I'll preserve your anonymity. So. I hear you choosing the path you're going to take in life is it's a daunting prospect, but here's the secret you aren't actually making that choice right now, it's a long and a gradual process with lots of twists and turns. And none of these crossroads is actually irreversible. So don't worry about the end result right now. Don't think that you have to choose the school that'll firmly and clearly deliver you to the door of the job you'll do until you retire. Second, don't be impatient. Don't rush to get a highly professional education right away. Don't commit yourself to an idea of what you'll do in life. When I was 17, I couldn't have described the life that I lead today. And I know that you're anxious about being successful in what you do, you and your parents don't want you to become a starving artist. Believe me, that's extremely unlikely. But similarly, I wouldn't want you to make up your mind today that you will be something specific. Your experience is simply too limited for you to make the right choice. At this point, there are so many sorts of stimulating and lucrative creative jobs that you could have. And most of them are careers that you haven't even heard of yet the training for most of them is kind of similar or however. You need to learn as much as you can, about as many things as you can. And that should be the goal of your college education. I've met and worked with lots of young people who went directly into art school and, or advertising school or design school or something like that. And then they think they know far more than they actually do. The fact that they've been taught some technical skills. Doesn't prepare them for a career in advertising or design. In fact, I would much rather hire a smart worldly inquisitive person who traveled the world, read history and sold shirts at the gap than a person who focused entirely on getting a career in advertising since they were 17. Most of the skills that they think that they've acquired can actually be learned pretty quickly on the job, but. Reading good literature, debating politics and philosophy, living among lots of different sorts of people. Those are experiences that will advance you far more in a creative field. The most interesting film directors didn't limit their educations to film school. The most interesting writers didn't come out of the Iowa program. The most successful copywriters didn't limit their education to an advertising program and so forth. So you say you're interested in art therapy and art teaching, and you might well end up in those fields, but I suggest that the reason you're interested in those fields is because, you know, people who are in them and frankly, your world seems a little limited. There are many, many other options that you should look into first. Here's a partial list of the jobs of creative people. I know stimulating and lucrative jobs that you may not have considered jobs that may actually be perfect for you. A documentary producer, UX designer magazine, illustrator greeting card designer, software engineer, toy designer, packaging engineer, medical illustrator, courtroom, artist, commercial photographer, automotive designer, production designer. Prop maker line producers, cinematographer magazine, art director, jewelry designer, fashion stylist, topographer costume designer, film editor, sound designer architect, urban planner, graphic designer, food stylist, runway photographer, book editor, book jacket, designer, museum curator. Art historian, retail, display designer, fashion director, makeup artists, choreographers, stage manager, commercial composer, industrial film editor, fragrance designer, information architect, strategic planner, Potter art buyer, continuity person, textile designer set carpenter, industrial chemist fashion forecaster copywriter. You can prepare for most of these jobs the same way. First of all, do your best in high school have diverse interests. So you build a good resume school, paper, school, play community stuff, and so forth. Sports matter, far less after high school than they do in high school. Same with TV, PlayStation, drugs, liquor, and other extracurriculars, but don't be a goody two-shoes either live fast, but don't die. Young apply to the best possible schools. Set your sights high. You sound smart and articulate and you can do it. My high school had no formal grades. So many of my classmates worried that they couldn't get into a good school. I didn't really know any better. So I apply it to the entire Ivy league. I only visited the one that I really wanted to attend Princeton. I knew very little about Princeton, but I liked F Scott Fitzgerald and he went there. My parents weren't particularly wealthy, but family members kicked in some cash. So I could go get a very liberal education. This is the last time in life that you'll get to immerse yourself all day in all sorts of learning among a lot of smart people. Don't waste it by limiting yourself or your field of interest. I studied French, Latin history, geology politics, literature, economics, our history, music, anthropology, psychology, and more. Only when you're absolutely forced to choose a major. Mine was political science with a minor in near Eastern studies. I wrote my thesis about 1960s, radical students. Again, none of it had anything to do with my future career, and yet it was all immensely helpful in separating me from the dull careerists in my peer group. I was an am interested and interesting. I can bring a lot more to the discussion than those who majored in graphic arts or economics or any of those things. Trust me. If you could learn all the professional skills that you'd need to, in four years of college, it wouldn't be worth much in the job market, but the ability to form associations between obscure things is a very valuable skill that you can only hone by reading and experiencing as much as possible throughout your whole life. I got my first job in advertising. After a couple of weeks of interviewing, it was pretty easy and I had zero experience. The future looks bright for creative people. There are more and more opportunities to earn a good and an interesting living as somebody who makes stuff at the beginning of the information age, a couple decades ago, technical skills mattered a lot and engineers and economists, and those kinds of guys who were, those are the Kings. But these days being creative is pretty valuable. People who make things will be very valuable. I think for a while to come. The entertainment field will keep creatives in a solid leading position, fashion, consumer culture, computer gaming, web design, marketing music, film. Those are growing industries. And think about how those fields have transformed over your short lifetime. Any hardcore specific learning that you get in a secondary college in these fields, it's going to be obsolete before you graduate, but if you have a diverse and an insatiable hunger for learning and a creative mind, you will always be on the cusp of whatever's happening. Education never stops. Apply yourself in school, but use your summers to explore other fields. Write to people, ask for internships, spend half your summer making, spending money and the other half working in a gallery or a commercial production company or a startup or a magazine publisher. I worked at the white house, but I also worked at newspapers and congressmen and McDonald's and record stores. There's all kinds of opportunities out there. You can also wait until graduate school to go to an art program by then. You might feel more comfortable about where you want to specialize, but meanwhile, keep reading and exploring. My nightstand has always been piled high with history books, art criticism, books on technique, magazines of different kinds. I take classes. I interview people with different kinds of careers and I keep hungry and inquisitive. I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up and you don't need to be either. Okay. I hope this is a little helpful. Meanwhile, don't worry. And be happy. Your pal, Danny. If you have a question you'd like to ask me, just email me danny@sketchbookskool.com and I'll do my best to answer it. Maybe by return mail or maybe even on this podcast. And I'll gladly mask your identity. Like I did. Tiffany Johnson. Like I'll preserve your anonymity anyway. This is Danny Gregory and this has been another episode of art for all the sketchbook skool podcast. I'll see you next with, I dunno. more opinions advice, or maybe not.