Thinking of photo school?

[Frank Petronio]

Photo schools, even at public institutions, exist to support facalty and facilities, not students. Even the "better" schools like RIT are much less selective than before, as the number of photo students continue to dwindle. Considering that almost 10,000 US students per year get a four year degree in photography, you have to ask yourself what happens to them all?

My advice is go to college for a good, broad, liberal education, and then, if they want to persue photography, learn from a place like the Maine Workshops, or self-assignments, or by working as an assistant. Photography by itself is a lousy major, and if you don't know very much about the rest of the world (History, Literature, Science) then what will you photograph?

Harry Challahan taught at RISD, and he had a good job, but to paraphrase him, he said something like "you can learn all you need to know about photography - at least enough to be a successful artist - within a year." Of course he taught lots of four-year majors but he had to pay the bills too.

[Craig Wactor]

My buddy is in her 1st semester at Brooks. Not too happy, either...

[Bruce Wehman]

Al, I too graduated in ’69 – Illustration major. I don’t remember you, but that was a long time ago. Boris Dobro, an instructor whom you no doubt remember well, used to say that if you didn’t have a love for photography, you weren’t going to make it, which sounded very noble and inspirational to those students who didn’t know Boris personally. What he was really saying, as tactfully as he could, was that personal satisfaction would probably be your only reward, while implying that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be money.

As long as I can remember, photography was never something that one did to get rich. But sadly that is a poor talking point for an admission recruiter.

What we are seeing here, I think, is yet another ethical lapse the likes of which are becoming increasingly common in the business world.

[GPS]

Only dudes have expectations of high $$ for having taken a photo school.

[paulr]

"My advice is go to college for a good, broad, liberal education, and then, if they want to persue photography, learn from a place like the Maine Workshops, or self-assignments, or by working as an assistant. Photography by itself is a lousy major, and if you don't know very much about the rest of the world (History, Literature, Science) then what will you photograph?"

It's interesting how many excellent photographers studied humanities in college. Robert Adams was actually an english lit professor.

I think trade school educations in general are a kind of time bomb. Look at what happened to a whole generation of people who went to technical school to learn programming. The whole industry got outsourced overseas, and they were left with nothing. There's a big, fundamental difference between an education and a trade, and the education is so much more flexible (not to mention interesting). Too many people find out the hard way.

I don't see anything wrong with studying art at a college that also teaches you about the world. It's the schools where you get your major in lighting and your minor in lens caps that are worrisome.

[Mark Sawyer]

"There's a big, fundamental difference between an education and a trade, and the education is so much more flexible (not to mention interesting). Too many people find out the hard way. "

Agreed, Paul. But I wonder, what do all those people really do with a BFA or MFA? The dream, I suppose, is to teach at a college-level program, but in Tucson, the University of Arizona turns out enough MFA's every year to fully staff both the University and community college photo faculty, and between the two, there's about one opening every five years, generally paying less than a high school teacher's salary...

A BFA is just sort of a prep degree before going for an MFA.

As wonderful as the experience of getting the education is, I suspect that for the majority of graduates, they have a degree in their hobby...

[Frank Petronio]

Nothing wrong with getting a degree in your hobby or art, so long as you understand it up front. It's the parents who end up paying - or the taxpayers who pick up the load defaults - that should know this upfront too.

[Frank Petronio]

Nothing wrong with getting a degree in your hobby or art, so long as you understand it up front. It's the parents who end up paying - or the taxpayers who pick up the loan defaults - that should know this upfront too.

[Frank Petronio]

Darn, I wish this forum had an edit function like the UBB ones.

[tim atherton]

"Agreed, Paul. But I wonder, what do all those people really do with a BFA or MFA? The dream, I suppose, is to teach at a college-level program, but in Tucson, the University of Arizona turns out enough MFA's every year to fully staff both the University and community college photo faculty, and between the two, there's about one opening every five years, generally paying less than a high school teacher's salary...

A BFA is just sort of a prep degree before going for an MFA.

As wonderful as the experience of getting the education is, I suspect that for the majority of graduates, they have a degree in their hobby..."

Mark,

I read recently that many major companies are starting to find they can't get enough interview candidates with good arts degrees (not limited to MFA's).

Over the last 10-20 years people have been encouraged to move over into to computer science/technical/maths, engineering, management and business type degrees etc.

But a huge amount of their technical work is now being outsourced to locations like India, where there are more than enough computer science and other degrees degrees of various sorts etc to go around.

And everyone and his dog is doing the same basic MBA under 50 different names (which they are increasingly fidning aren't providing what they are looking for).

As more and more of the technical and administrative work is being outsourced to people with the same degees and qualifictions who will work for a 10th of the wage of a US graduate, they are finding that what they need are creative and innovataive managers and thinkers - and they are finding those kind of people are the ones with arts degrees (fine art, music, literature etc) - of which there is becoming a shortage....