What can I expect if I get a photography degree.

[Roberto V.]

I'm in the process of sending applications to car design universities, but I was wondering about studying photography. What kind of job/income could I expect if I get an undergraduate degree in photography at a good school?

 

[Stephan]

I work as a photographer for a studio in Germany, and I can tell you it's not worth it. Study something that can get you a decent income and keep shooting for fun, the other way round sucks.

 

[Roberto V.]

I work as a photographer for a studio in Germany, and I can tell you it's not worth it. Study something that can get you a decent income and keep shooting for fun, the other way round sucks.

That's what I have been thinking, design cars for a living and shoot for fun. Still, I was curious about the possibilities. Thanks a lot for the input Stephan!

 

[Roger Hicks]

If you read photography, unless you're staggeringly good, or extremely lucky, or know the right people (in which case it won't matter where you went to university), you are looking straight at unemployment when you leave university; or at best, at employment in another field.

There are three ways you can approach university.

The first is to treat it as training: as a matter of interest, how many car design graduates are there per year, and how many jobs?

The second is to study something that interests you, and to hell with what you do afterwards. My brother did this; the relevance of a degree in botany to a career in finance is modest.

The third is to attempt to get as broad an education as possible, preferably with your final degree in something reasonably rigorous, e.g. not Media Studies. This was the approach I chose. I had a choice of law school and art school (photography, of course) and chose the law. I do not regret my choice.

One thing I would say, though, is that for many people, going to the sort of university where you will meet people useful to you in later life is probably at least as important as the subject you choose.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Michiel Fokkema]

Photography is one of the worse payed jobs in the Western world. If you get jobs at all
And you'll probably be more busy with running your business then photography.
If you really love photography you better do it as an amateur.

Cheers,

Michiel Fokkema

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Get a degree in business or finance of some kind. Something that will prove useful in your photography career if you choose to go that way. Photography is a tough way to make a living, especially these days, and unless you are obsessed by it, make it a hobby. While I've payed the bills with photography for over 40 years and enjoyed the heck out of it, photography as a profession would be a tough decision to make in 2011.

 

[sevo]

A degree usually means that you can get an unpaid internship by merely applying for a few open jobs rather than socializing/bullying your way into one, but that is about all the advantage it will give you professionally.

You can however learn a lot of useful and entertaining things by studying, get to hang around nice and intelligent people, and have enough time for experimentation to reconsider your true vocation and change directions.

If you get a opportunity to study full time under a grant at a good academy, do it, by all means - this might be the best time of your life, even if it has no impact on your future income. But if it is some paid thing alongside a job or if your only target is a career, forget it, this usually means misery rather than fun, as it won't give you the time needed to intellectually benefit from studying, nor the time to advance professionally in the day job.

 

[Richard G]

Steve Jobs would say do what you love, but when you ask what job you can expect I would say don't do it. Maybe a photography degree could be like a BA of any sort, where you are taught to analyze and think critically and write clearly, but it isn't so likely to be valued in the same way by a prospective employer.

 

[jsrockit]

You can expect to learn about Photography. I have a BFA in Photography and work as a regulator of Stock and Option exchanges now...

Just because you go to school for something doesn't mean you cannot get a job doing something else. What is more important is that you get a degree of some kind.

 

[Roger Hicks]

You can expect to learn about Photography. I have a BFA in Photography and work as a regulator of Stock and Option exchanges now...

Just because you go to school for something doesn't mean you cannot get a job doing something else. What is more important is that you get a degree of some kind.

Which raises the simple question, "Why?"

I'm not arguing. I'm sure you're right, in today's world.

But that doesn't make the question go away.

Cheers,

R.

 

[FalseDigital]

I definitely wouldn't expect any job after graduating college. Working in photography is 80% luck/having the right connections and 20% skill. You can easily learn the technical stuff on your own or by taking a 1-3 month class. The rest can't be taught. It takes practice and I believe a natural eye.

 

[FalseDigital]

Also, I should mention that I moved to Asia because American companies don't pay well/if at all. I lived in NYC and the majority of photographers there are being exploited as non-paid interns with nothing more than the promise of "exposure". If you're one of the very few that's lucky to be on a payroll you most likely have to give up all rights on the images you take. (I talked to a NY Times photographer of 20 years and he told me that everything he shoots, they own. If they reprint it elsewhere he gets no compensation. He actually quit because things weren't like that in the 80s/90s.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

You can expect to learn about Photography. I have a BFA in Photography and work as a regulator of Stock and Option exchanges now...

Just because you go to school for something doesn't mean you cannot get a job doing something else. What is more important is that you get a degree of some kind.

Actually, in most places a photo degree does make you unemployable. New York is unique, the rest of the USA is NOT like that. In the midwest, having a photo or art degree on your resume is an instant disqualifier for ANY job you apply for. The OP is in Mexico. I do not know what it is like there, but imagine it is not good either.

Follow Pickett Wilson's advice, go to school for business. It'll teach you how to run one, which is something photo and art schools refuse to teach students, despite the fact that nearly all artists and photographers are SELF-EMPLOYED small business owners.

If you go into business as a photographer after getting your business degree, the degree WILL get you a job as a corporate manager, so you don't starve and end up homeless like I did after earning my art degree. I make enough to live now, but I BARELY do, and it took 10 years of struggle and doing so badly damaged my health. Do not go to a photo school unless you are already wealthy, or your family is willing to house and feed you for the rest of your life.

 

[rxmd]

Which raises the simple question, "Why?"

I'm not arguing. I'm sure you're right, in today's world.

But that doesn't make the question go away.

I guess because apart from whatever knowledge you've gained during training, the degree helps in documenting to strangers that you were willing and capable to commit to something halfway rigorous for a few years. That's why it helps to study something you are interested in.

It depends on the degree, too. An associate's or bachelor's degree, while also certifying that you've submitted yourself to some kind of institutionalized testing procedure that involves writing and examination, seems to be mainly about what you learn during your studies. On the contrary, a PhD from a halfways respectable institution mainly documents that you are willing and capable of organizing yourself through a long-term research project at a high level of abstraction where you have to generate much of the required knowledge yourself. It also documents that you know what you were studying, but from an employer's perspective this knowledge is usually secondary to what it says about your organizional capabilities.

I'm working where I work because of my degree, even though it my work is only tangential to what I was studying. The main reason was that in order to get my degree, apart from learning to organize myself for extended amounts of time, I had to do a lot of other things - do research, learn languages, travel, cooperate with people from different cultures, teach, work on the side. The degree basically certifies that at some point I've been capable of doing all that with some kind of result.

I don't agree that a photo degree makes you unemployable. If I had a photo degree in addition to whatever other degree I have, I wouldn't be any less employable for it. Having only a photo degree is what makes it difficult.

I wouldn't go for a photography degree, unless you're already a halfways accomplished photographer when you start it. Instead, do something else that will feed you, while also giving you good opportunities to take pictures if you so desire.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I guess because apart from whatever knowledge you've gained during training, the degree helps in documenting to strangers that you were willing and capable to commit to something halfway rigorous for a few years. . . . The degree basically certifies that at some point I've been capable of doing all that with some kind of result.

.

First clip: Which could equally be the case had you shown yourself willing and able at work.

Second clip: Otherwise know as a track record.

I'm not anti-education for education's sake. I'm just not convinced that even a first degree should be essential for the sake of getting a job.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Steve M.]

Let's put it this way....don't quit your day job.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Let's put it this way....don't quit your day job.

A friend of mine (a nanny) once said that to Prince Andrew, after he'd made rather heavy weather of telling a joke.

Then she remembered who she was talking to...

Cheers,

R.

 

[thegman]

I don't have a degree, and don't regret that, but I can see how it can be valuable as a fall back for professions which require a degree. In my chosen profession, some employers demand a degree and some don't, so it would come in handy, but also, a 4 year headstart in employment can come in handy too.

A degree in engineering is likely to be very useful, a degree in photography or art does not strike me as such.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I don't have a degree, and don't regret that, but I can see how it can be valuable as a fall back for professions which require a degree. In my chosen profession, some employers demand a degree and some don't, so it would come in handy, but also, a 4 year headstart in employment can come in handy too.

A degree in engineering is likely to be very useful, a degree in photography or art does not strike me as such.

Quite. A surprising number of university-age people I meet are questioning the value of a degree that is undertaken neither as training (e.g. law) nor out of interest, and which plunges them into massive debt.

Cheers,

R.

 

[niels christopher]

I was actually in that very position of yours, two years back or so. I was seriously considering to apply for photojournalism and therefore read a lot and talked to many people in the business.

The essence of what everybody(!) told me:

It's just not worth the cost, the effort and everything that you put in it.


Somebody told me: Son, a few years (decades) back, I would've told you: If you're really, and I mean absolutely determined to do this..do it. Put everything you have into it, and if you're lucky, you'll actually make it. But these times are over.

There are very, very few people around the world who are actually able to make a living of what they love doing in photojournalism.
I don't want to end up with a run-down photo studio taking the same passport-pictures 365 days a year...I think that's what ruins your once so precious passion: photography.


After quite some time of consideration, actually months spent thinking, I decided to rather do something I really love as well and at the same time provides the money for me to make a living.
This way, I hopefully will be able to preserve photography as one of my most joyful hobbies.

IF at some point, somebody will recognize my absolutely ingenious body of work and would offer me permanent employment at, say the National Geographic, I could still get into business w/o a degree, I guess. 😎


Whatever, I hope you'll come up with whatever feels right for you. 🙂




Niels (born too late)