HS Dropout or Photography Major?

If you need 4 years of college to learn how to operate a camera, perhaps a high school drop out could do your job. :rolleyes: just saying
 
it'sawhat? said:
If you need 4 years of college to learn how to operate a camera, perhaps a high school drop out could do your job. :rolleyes: just saying
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my daughter is a junior in high school now; I keep harping "photography minor, useful major". working so far, we'll see...

after taking enough courses to get a minor, you can get the images - or you can't
 
No, I don't think that is all you learn.
but I do not believe 4 years of college are needed to learn how to make well-composed saleable images nor is it necessary for learning how to develop or print your photographs. It may make it easier to learn them depending on teacher and student, just unnecessary. I could se where a film major could make good use of a degree in photography but I think more people looking to hire a photographer will be sold by their portfolio than by a degree.
 
I tend to think that a college degree in the arts is probably not necessary, although it may become more so as the 21st Century evolves, and it certainly can't hurt if you can afford it. On the other end of the spectrum, engineering and the sciences could hardly be approached today as an autodidactic.

I was never impressed too much by degrees (probably because I didn't have any). My daughter graduated sume cum laude with a double major, obtained a phd, then a law degree. I guess she made up for my lack of education!
 
My wife and I encouraged our children to study subjects that they were interested in. Our idea was that the job market is likely to change over the span of their careers in ways that no one can predict. The people who will succeed under these conditions will be the ones who have developed good learning skills and adaptability.

My son started out thinking that he would major in political science with a view toward going to law school. After one semester he changed to Spanish, leveraging the time he had spent as an exchange student in Paraguay. He ended up working in financial services and, after taking time off to get an MBA, he now works as a bond trader and makes twice what I do.

My daughter thought that she wanted to study nuclear physics but after struggling for two semesters changed her major to Scandinavian Studies, following that with an MBA. She worked for a while as a consultant until our first granddaughter was born.

For myself, I majored in biology and Oceanography. After a few years working in that field I realized it was a dead end and migrated into computer work.
 
As with most arts, the basics can be learnt in one freshman introductory class, but they can take a lifetime to master. It just depends on what your ambitions are. People who are commercially successful in the arts often have an instinct for that regardless of their education level.

There are other disciplines, like architecture, that fare even worse than those mentioned in the article. Architects are expected to have real skills and knowledge, but that does not necessarily help their job prospects. That is just the nature of this fickle economy.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/unemployment_college_major/index.htm
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The only job which really requires a college degree is college professor. People used to know that, but seem to have forgotten.

Once the brainwashing wears off, we college professors are in deep sh-t.

That said, if college tuition were significantly reduced, it would be a beneficial experience for a majority of kids.

Randy
 
randy, i like the way you think. college, i think, ultimately is most useful for contacts/netwroking in the real world, usually at a professional level, and learning how to get along in one's chosen field. research is different, as are many other things, where advanced training/degrees are necessary. but college largely is a network incubator.
on another note, i am reasonably certain that not a single daily newspaper photographer i have ever known - and i have known some superb ones - had a fine arts degree, nor a degree in anything, except for one who got a culinary degree. a couple had military training in photography ...
 
paulfish4570 said:
randy, i like the way you think. college, i think, ultimately is most useful for contacts/netwroking in the real world, usually at a professional level, and learning how to get along in one's chosen field. research is different, as are many other things, where advanced training/degrees are necessary. but college largely is a network incubator.
on another note, i am reasonably certain that not a single daily newspaper photographer i have ever known - and i have known some superb ones - had a fine arts degree, nor a degree in anything, except for one who got a culinary degree. a couple had military training in photography ...
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Paul, all of the photographers at Fort Wayne's two daily papers have bachelors degrees, and two of them have masters degrees. The papers here won't even consider hiring someone without a university degree.
 
zauhar said:
The only job which really requires a college degree is college professor. People used to know that, but seem to have forgotten.

Once the brainwashing wears off, we college professors are in deep sh-t.

That said, if college tuition were significantly reduced, it would be a beneficial experience for a majority of kids.

Randy
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Randy, that is a load of crap, and you know it. The law requires teachers, accountants, nurses, medical doctors, lawyers, mental health counsellors, and pharmacists to have university degrees. That's not a fad or 'brainwashing'; it has been that way for a long time.

If you truly believe education has no real-world value, you should not be teaching. You're doing a grave disservice to your students.

There are a lot of jobs that do not require a degree at all, and there are a lot of jobs that employers demand a degree for, which really can be done by someone without much education. The reason they demand degrees is that there are far more working-age people in the USA than our economy can support. Decent jobs get hundreds, and sometimes THOUSANDS of applicants. Putting up artificial barriers, like education requirements that exceed the real education needed to do the job, is a way for companies to reduce the number of applications to wade through. That will not change until/unless our economy is reformed.
 
paulfish4570 said:
randy, i like the way you think. college, i think, ultimately is most useful for contacts/networking in the real world, usually at a professional level, and learning how to get along in one's chosen field. research is different, as are many other things, where advanced training/degrees are necessary. but college largely is a network incubator.
on another note, i am reasonably certain that not a single daily newspaper photographer i have ever known - and i have known some superb ones - had a fine arts degree, nor a degree in anything, except for one who got a culinary degree. a couple had military training in photography ...
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Highlight 1: Exactly. WHERE you study matters more than WHAT you study (including photography or not).

Highlight 2: The young ones may need a degree in order to get hired, but all this means is that the people hiring them know nothing about photography and are trying to cover their miserable, ignorant arses.

Cheers,

R.
 
Chris, you are correct that many places require a degree for just about any job they offer - does not mean that the degree program taught the employees anything required for the job.

Medicine is indeed an exception, although a big chunk of what docs learn takes place in residency, not med school. As for law, in the past there were lawyers who passed the bar, didn't attend or finish law school, not sure you can do that now.

I do the best I can for my students, although I question what I can do for them that is worth $30,000 per year. A few years back I could usually help the best of them get a decent job at the end, that is not so true now

Randy
 
Art degrees for photography and acting is the biggest scam/joke I can think of. Makes me giggle when Americans say they have that. What do they think is going to happen? Go to an acting audition, guy gives them his diploma and they say you are hired? Hilarious.

If you want to become an actor, join a theater company. If you want to be a photographer buy a camera and go out. End of story, and if you think anything other (remember we are not talking about becoming a doctor here) you are lost cause.

Hey, if you guys have kids who want to become photography majors, tell them to give ME $30.000 (or whatever education costs in USA these days, because you guys need to pay money for education right? Funny) I'll take them around the planet 4 years non stop, from the mongolian mountains to the Hollywood parties in Bel Air, or they can "go to school", their choice.
 
It's also noteworthy that the article cited by the OP is partially literate drivel combining the worst of a cheap journalism school with the worst of a cheap MBA. Whenever I see the word 'compensation' used interchangeably with 'pay', I wince. You don't get 'compensated' for something you love to do, and are good at, though (if you are lucky) you may get paid for doing it.

Moriturii's point about presenting your diploma instead of going to an audition is wonderful, but of course, Chris is right about "artificial barriers, like education requirements that exceed the real education needed to do the job".

Cheers,

R.
 
Well, true story time: I went to school, in London, with a chap who introduced me to photography. By the time we were in the sixth form (age range 16 to 18) we were doing quite nicely out jobs done (allegedly) in our spare time. We both took the then new examination in photography and both achieved the top grade. My friend wanted to go further, so applied to one of the better art colleges. After viewing his work and interviewing him, they refused to admit him to the course.

What they did, instead, was to offer him a junior lecturer's position, leading the course he had applied for.

:D
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
Well, true story time: I went to school, in London, with a chap who introduced me to photography. By the time we were in the sixth form (age range 16 to 18) we were doing quite nicely out jobs done (allegedly) in our spare time. We both took the then new examination in photography and both achieved the top grade. My friend wanted to go further, so applied to one of the better art colleges. After viewing his work and interviewing him, they refused to admit him to the course.

What they did, instead, was to offer him a junior lecturer's position, leading the course he had applied for.
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That's a lovely story, and well illustrates that if you want to establish yourself in any creative field, you've much better prospects in a big city than in the arse end of nowhere. I always liked the Roman idea that a patrician would spend his childhood on the family estates; go to Rome at around 12; and then in later years retire again to his estates. I worked in London in my 20s, which was sort of an abbreviated version of the same thing, without, alas, the family estates.

Cheers,

R.
 
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