Brooks Photography School Closing: Shattered Dreams

[airfrogusmc]

I really don't think many pursue creative graduate degrees for any real financial gain but they do it for personal visual gain. To have time to explore ones creativity full time and if it's in the right environment for the student it can be extremely rewarding on a personal level. And if one wants to teach full time an MFA is pretty much a requirement in most accredited schools.

 

[Doug]

...Psst! Want to know a secret? Art school is fun.

I agree! When I started taking art classes at the local uni, it was for fun and personal growth. I had a modest money machine going with flexible hours, so I didn't have the need to make a new career out of it. Not just photography, but other art instruction was broadening and interesting. I had a small show at a local gallery. Somehow English Writing got included and for a while I wrote articles for computer magazines... mostly for the fun of it. 🙂

FWIW, seem to recall our former RFF member from Seattle, Shutterflower, headed off south to Brooks... Or am I not remembering correctly?

 

[alan davus]

Maybe 40 years ago, definitely not today. With few exceptions labour jobs pay poorly and country specific regulations virtually ensure you'll only ever be able to work in your home country unless you get re-licensed, not to mention if your profession becomes threatened by technology or increasingly competitive labour markets you'll be completely screwed.

Everyone I know that went for the apprenticeship route is now either unemployed or has gone on to university. Today getting a bachelors is the modern equivalent of going to high school.

This might be true in the US (I'm presuming you are Stateside) but definitely not Downunder. I was accepted to study Law coming out of Secondary School decades ago but went into plumbing instead. Have never regretted it for one minute. I've earnt a good living all these years, managed to send my 3 daughters to private schools, kept a lovely wife happy, bought myself toys like Leicas etc. Most of my work companions are in similar positions. Here in Oz if you work hard, a trade is still a very viable option. Perhaps best of all being a tradesman gives you the option of being self employed. I've gone through most of my working life without the fear of being made redundant. Not like mates who did professions and were forced to retire early.

 

[Bill Clark]

My neighbor is a retired plumber. They are in demand here in the United States. Not many young people want to learn the trade. He told me how frequently he would be out with his van, it had the name of his business on both sides, he would either be walking from his van to a place like a mall or returning to it and someone would stop him and try to hire him.

He and his wife now own an ocean going catamaran. It was made in South Africa and they sail all over this earth. He sold their home for 1.1 million.

Not too bad for just a plumber.

 

[pepeguitarra]

That may be tip I needed. I am going to check Mike Diamond immediately. Those guys are in real demand in the summer: HAVC and Plumbing.

 

[pepeguitarra]

The truth is that those are the jobs that will be available in the USA now and in the future. Manufacturing jobs are gone for ever, and are not coming back. College grad jobs few will succeed: doctors, lawyers (always) and computer gigs. Most everyone else will have to go into service like plumbing and air conditioning repair.

 

[Jake Mongey]

Im disapointed by this, despite being in the UK this is where I wanted to get a degree...

 

[nongfuspring]

This might be true in the US (I'm presuming you are Stateside) but definitely not Downunder. I was accepted to study Law coming out of Secondary School decades ago but went into plumbing instead. Have never regretted it for one minute. I've earnt a good living all these years, managed to send my 3 daughters to private schools, kept a lovely wife happy, bought myself toys like Leicas etc. Most of my work companions are in similar positions. Here in Oz if you work hard, a trade is still a very viable option. Perhaps best of all being a tradesman gives you the option of being self employed. I've gone through most of my working life without the fear of being made redundant. Not like mates who did professions and were forced to retire early.

Aussie is a pretty good exception for labour wages, I have friends working in Darwin moving furniture earning over 120k AUS and a welder in the mines making the same amount working 6 months of the year. Trades are great to know but the problem I see with encouraging young people to go straight into trades is that it narrows career options in the future. The labour market is changing very rapidly and even in countries where the goings are good (like you guys) are potentially vulnerable to changes in the global economy, e.g. a slowdown in demand for steel from China. There's an argument to be made for making bank while the money is there, which is fair enough, but in the future flexibility will be more important than wages. So I would say that if a kid is interested they should by all means do a trade, but augment that with further study in another area.

This idea given to young people to take up a career in a safe profession is less and less solid. Take for example accountancy, which up until a few years ago was a great profession, now it's almost completely finished (killed by the tech industry), and law, which is now (at least in the US job market) completely oversaturated. Difference between a degree holder whose profession no longer exists and a tradesperson whose skills are no longer in demand is that a degree holder has a greater variety of career options.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . Psst! Want to know a secret? Art school is fun.

This is the first fundamental problem. Far too many people go to college/ university for bleakly utilitarian reasons because they think it'll get them a job; or because they can't think of anything else to do; or because their family (or society at large) expects it of them. Far too few go because it's fun or because they actually want to study anything.

The second fundamental problem is that there's a big difference between going to a vibrant, lively college and a dull degree mill. Far too many colleges are degree mills.

Third, there's an enormous difference between (say) New York, Paris or London, and some bleak provincial city, especially if the bleak provincial city in question has a Mickey Mouse university that was formerly a technical college.

For example, when I feared I was going to get thrown out of law school for failing Criminal Law for the third time, I applied to Salford University to read Ecology. It turned out that the ecology degree had been nailed together from two previous courses: training to be a meat inspector and training to be a sanitary inspector. I was accepted for the course but said, "Don't call me, I'll call you." Fortunately I passed Criminal Law the fourth time.

Fourth, being young is (or can be) fun as long as you aren't wasting your time with a dull, pointless, utilitarian course in a bleak provincial city. One of the reasons I repeated a year (because of the Criminal Law) was that one term, I spent just six weeks at the university. I was too busy having fun elsewhere.

Fifth, I'd probably have enjoyed myself a lot more at that age if I'd bypassed university and done what I did two or three years after leaving: worked as an assistant in a London advertising/hire studio. Or I might have done better just to practise my writing: this is a powerful argument for a universal basic income (UBI). Or I might have joined a local newspaper as a junior reporter, as the late Sir Terry Pratchett did.

There are far too many pointless universities handing out pointless degrees, and far too many people go to them just to get a pointless "qualification" which is nothing of the sort.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Bill Clark]

Roger,

For baby boomers like me, living in the United States, graduating from high school in the 1960s, it was either college or Viet Nam. College = 2s deferment.

The war reporting was on the evening news most every night, presented in a style similar to a traffic report, rather than cars it was about people getting killed.

Not a pretty picture:

http://leicaphilia.com/wp-content/u...ren-Fleeing-an-Aerican-Napalm-Strike-1972.jpg

Would that motivate you to go to college just to defer meeting this? And hope it's over before 4years of college was through.

Maybe that's one of the reasons places like Brooks were doing OK back then.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I donno Roger I went because photography was something I loved. It was hard work but fun and it paid off for me. After 4 years in the Marines, Uncle Sam owed me 4 years of college so I took advantage of it. There were kids in school that were not focused and were using it to mark time but there were also many others like me that worked their tails off to learn.

I can't think of another career path that i could have taken that I would have loved as much as I do this one. I mean to get up everyday and get paid to do what I do for me in my free time and to be able to work with other creative professionals is a blessing. To not hate what I do to feed the family and to think I wouldn't be in the field of photography that I am in without my education.

There have been some real issues with non accredited schools taking advantage people and the government has been cracking down on a lot of them because of government insured student loans being used to finance educations in those unaccredited institutions.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger,

For baby boomers like me, living in the United States graduating from high dchool in the 1960s, it was either college or Viet Nam.

What would've you chose?

The war reporting was on the evening news most every night, presented in a style similar to a traffic report, rather than cars it was about people getting killed.

Not a pretty picture:

http://leicaphilia.com/wp-content/u...ren-Fleeing-an-Aerican-Napalm-Strike-1972.jpg

Would that motivate you to go to college just to defer meeting this?

Maybe that's one of the reasons places like Brooks were doing OK back then.

Dear Bill,

Well, yes. I was living in Bermuda in the late 60s and had many American friends, so I understand full well.

Four years ago we actually met Nick U and Kim Phuc: she and Frances hugged for some time.

The other reason Brooks may have been doing OK in the 60s was that it was still run by enthusiasts, not bean-counters.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I donno Roger I went because photography was something I loved. It was hard work but fun and it paid off for me. After 4 years in the Marines, Uncle Sam owed me 4 years of college so I took advantage of it. There were kids in school that were not focused and were using it to mark time but there were also many others like me that worked their tails off to learn.

I can't think of another career path that i could have taken that I would have loved as much as I do this one. I mean to get up everyday and get paid to do what I do for me in my free time and to be able to work with other creative professionals is a blessing. To not hate what I do to feed the family and to think I wouldn't be in the field of photography that I am in without my education.

There have been some real issues with non accredited schools taking advantage people and the government has been cracking down on a lot of them because of government insured student loans being used to finance educations in those unaccredited institutions.

Sure. It works very well if you are really committed and know what you want to do. All I'm saying is that it isn't for everyone; perhaps, even that it isn't for most people. Besides, times change. "Qualifications" (often meaningless ones at that) have become far more important than they were.

Also, after four years in the Marine Corps you were no longer, shall we say, a callow kid filling in time after school.

Cheers,

R.

 

[airfrogusmc]

So we will agree if one doesn't apply themselves whether educated in college or in the trades that that chances of success will be slim.

And unemployment rates are a lot lower among college grads than non college grads in the US.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/01/underemployment-rates-college-graduates-decline

 

[Roger Hicks]

So we will agree if one doesn't apply themselves whether educated in college or in the trades that that chances of success will be slim. . . .

Mostly agree. Quite honestly I know enough people who went to the "right" schools and the "right" universities, thanks to Daddy's money, that they really didn't have to try all that hard to get a job, especially with Daddy's contacts to help them after they left.

There's also a basic truth that mediocrity hires mediocrity. How else could MBAs survive? This is The Curse Of Middle Management.

Then there's the flat-out lie that degrees are in any way a qualification all on their own when (as you say) it's application that does it: degrees have been hopelessly devalued. Of course application plus a degree will help, but I can't help feeling that someone with lots of application and no degree is likely to be better placed than someone with very little application and a Yale degree. If they aren't, they should be. That's ignoring nepotism and cumulative advantage, of course.

Cheers,

R.

 

[airfrogusmc]

LoL Fred it was the teacher I would say for sure.

Roger,

But in the US you are far more likely (by a lot) to be employed and remain employed if you are a college grad.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

And unemployment rates are a lot lower among college grads than non college grads in the US.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/12/01/underemployment-rates-college-graduates-decline

I suppose, these statistics can be explained quite easily, I mean why this is different in the USA than in other parts of our planet, e.g. Europe:

a) Instead of being «unemployed» for a period longer than probably half a year, college graduates who were born into a wealthy family very likely undertake e.g. a trip around the world—both the US American and the European ones.

b) The less wealthy college graduates drive a taxi, or sell chocolate bars, in the USA, instead of being «unemployed»; whereas in Europe, most future employers would frown, if a J.D., or a M.D., etc., would have been taxi driving, or selling chocolate bars, instead of being «unemployed».

 

[airfrogusmc]

Most college grads I know personally including myself aren't from wealth. I put myself through school and I don't drive a cab nrt do any other of the college grads I know personally.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Most college grads I know personally including myself aren't from wealth. I put myself through school and I don't drive a cab not do any other of the college grads I know personally.

A lot depends on how you define both "wealth" and "college". By international standards many members of the middle class are quite wealthy by their own efforts: enough to buy a house and help their children establish themselves. My late father retired from the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant Commander, having joined as an Artificer Apprentice, later becoming an A.M.I. Mar.E. (Associate Member of the Institute of Marine Engineers). My late mother was a primary school teacher who taught for 15 years before choosing to acquire a Teaching Certificate in 1963. Neither went to university.

There's also a bit of a difference between a long-established university and a renamed technical college. A friend's daughter is just off to Plymouth University; or Plymouth Technical College as it was 40-odd years ago, or Plymouth Polytechnic as it became on the way to becoming a University.

Cheers,

R.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

Most college grads I know personally including myself aren't from wealth. I put myself through school and I don't drive a cab nrt do any other of the college grads I know personally.

I wasn't insinuating that you would drive a taxi; I was just trying to explain that you US Americans shouldn't take your domestic statistics too seriously 😉

Because if one is earnestly comparing domestic statistics to other countries' statistics — and you were insinuating that, I suppose —, one can clearly state that all these figures are basically worthless without precise knowlegde of particular factors of particular countries, e.g.: does «social mobility» actually exist?

A lot depends on how you define both "wealth" and "college". By international standards many members of the middle class are quite wealthy […]

IIRC, recently someone here (the «innovative»-thread, I guess?) wrote, that the Exakta VP was made for the «proletariat».
Hm. Perhaps s/he was in a satirical mood?
Or s/he's a really really weirdly aloof member of The Peerage, who knows? 😉