If your child was planning on studying Art/Fine Art at Uni, would you advise them against it due to lack of job prospects (and AI)?

[NewYearNewBear]

Just that really.
My daughter loves art and is studying it as an A level subject and wants to study fine art at University.
She got an 8 at GCSE exam.

She thinks she can become a portrait artist and doesn't seem to want to consider related carers like graphics etc.
Would you advise them against studying Art even though it's probably the only thing they are passionate about?

I did a Fine Art degree and I'm really glad I did. It was what I was most passionate about and it has led onto a great career where I earn more than a lot of my friends who studied History / English / Psychology etc. Not as an artist but still in the arts.

Very few of those on my course went on to become artists (although maybe like your daughter that's what we were thinking originally) but it just opened doors for them in a huge range of careers: posh commercial galleries, marketing, teaching, design, Higher Education. People work in all sorts of fields now.

Fine Art is no different to studying any subject you're passionate about at Uni like English / History / Geography etc. It can lead onto many graduate level jobs and doesn't need to be restricted to a career as an artist.

The variety of our Fine Art degree actually seemed to give us a edge over many other graduates tbh. We had not just read books and written essays (although that was still 50% of it) but we had also coordinated exhibitions, studied abroad, fundraised for exhibitions, completed gallery internships etc.

In contrast many of my friends studying other subjects had just done the usual essays, exams and dissertation and struggled to have much to talk about in job interviews.

I do think it's good to go to a good University for Fine Art though, and that can usually involved doing a Foundation Degree for one year.

Happy to answer any questions @NewYearNewBear but I wouldn't see her dreams as a negative.

You just need a good portfolio and they like some life experience etc. mature students are desirable for courses like this as they generally get very good grades as they focus better / not partying / often self funding so want to do well. But yeah, nobody needs to do a foundation year, I’d say only maybe 2 people on my course had done so.

She should pursue Fine Art and pursue every opportunity possible related to it. But simultaneously she should be ready to sacrifice for her passion, i.e., work in whatever job that pays the bills and carve out the time to practice her art. It can be a hard slog and a difficult path, but immensely fulfilling. She should go into it with her eyes open, not expecting to become the next Big Thing and make lots of money.

STEM careers are relatively poorly paid though with some exceptions. DS has decided against STEM subjects at A-Level for this reason. My NHS consultant friend is already seeing AI introduced into her area (surgery) so anyone who thinks STEM or trad careers are immune to its impacts are deluding themselves. Finance and accounting used to be thought of as jobs for life but 1000s of jobs have either been outsourced to Mumbai or digitally processed out of existence.

You're taking a gamble on any degree these days with the exception of vocational ones and even then, me with my 'useless' drama degee and DH with his unfinished HND in art are high earners and have been since our 20s. It's not really about the degree - it's about other skills and aptitudes/attitudes.

I know someone who was coerced by parents and school to doing a maths degree instead of music. He dropped out in 6 months, went back to do music and is now a professional musician but with a bigger student loan to pay off.

A fine art degree is no more of a salary gamble than most degrees these days.

I bet you're fun at parties.

One of the most depressing things I've read in weeks

So you would pay for your child to do a geography degree but not a law degree? Interesting.

I would also say that a Fine Art degree from one of the major art schools opens doors and connects you to networks and opportunities like nothing else - in media/advertising/TV/film/education etc. Yeah, they are full of posh people but so are all degrees these days. As a working class girl and the first to graduate in my family, it was the contacts (both with my peers and the teaching staff) that enabled me to build a career. Not the degree itself.

Fine art can lead to a career. My DDs OH did fine art specialising in photography and film. He now works as a content creator for a specialist company and travels all over the world. He is not paid particularly well but he earns enough and owns his own home. More importantly he loves his job.

A friend of mine did a fine art degree she worked in the holidays as a porter in an auction house. This helped her get a job in an auction house. She studied in her own time to get her gemology exams and now heads the jewellery department of a major international auction house. Regularly see videos of her selling pieces if jewellery worth 100s of thousands of pounds.

My parents stopped me and was quite possibly the best decision they made for me.

I went to study Economics at university, married my childhood sweetheart, divorced him, was able to buy my house off him and have a full independent life after. This would not have been possible had I gone down the fine art route.

Could you (or others) say a bit more about a foundation year because I don't know anything about them.
I think it sounds like a good idea to get a taster of the different types of art etc.
Where do you do them ... at school/college/uni?
Are they really free? We are in London by the way.

There is no inherited money/wealth!
She would be getting a student loan for 50k.
The worst scenario is she has 50k debt from arts degree and then realises it doesn't pay and needs a second degree by which time she may have a debt of 150k.
It's hard to have conversations about this with idealistic 16/17 year olds.

Wow. I have a degree which you probably think is pointless, but I loved my time at university and doing my degree. I gained so much from it and it was the best years of my life. Going to university is so much more than the job or career you end up with. I have a very good career and I am a high earner (120k +) by the way. My children do STEM degrees, but I find the snobbery around STEM vs non STEM baffling personally.

"I can give them lots of support and unconditional love"

Equal in both instances you cite @Sdpbody,which is admirable.

For you though it's salary that defines you as a person and fills your soul?

Not so sure.

No
If it's her passion I would support her.
I know several people who did art degrees some are now working in art (fashion design, interior design, graphic design)! Some are not using their degree but are working in good jobs.
Not everyone with an art degree will become a famous painter but there are other careers where an art degree is useful.
I don't think they are any more likely to be unemployed than someone with any other Arts degree.

DD is doing a 2 year art diploma in art instead of A-levels. I'm a big believer in encouraging kids to do things they love or are at least interested in. What will be will be, either they'll find work doing something related or go in a different direction. Mine is currently deciding between Fine Art and Illustration for a degree. Does anyone have useful input on Illustration as an alternative to Fine Art? She will apparently not need a foundation year as she will have covered it during her current course.

No. But I did encourage them to go for a more traditional History of Art / Art combined course at a more established university - rather than what was becoming their first choice - a very specialised art degree at a new university.

I was thinking of future work prospects.

She ended up going towards architecture and ending up in publishing. She never felt it was the wrong decision vision. Lots of opportunities to practise actual art skills even on the traditional course.

And it was a gentle steer - I think! - nothing confrontational.

This.

I studied it at Bournemouth uni. I struggled immensely to get work at all, let alone a career out of it. Out of my class mates at uni who studied with me I know of 2 who have made a career out of it.

It's a lot of debt, with not a lot of hope for a career let alone a well paying one.

I don't do any fine art work for money anymore and haven't since 2016. I left uni in 2014.
I'm in an established career in finance now and practice fine art as a hobby.

Fine Art grad here.

My thoughts, in no particular order:

Fine art degrees are about art for the art market ie high end collectors and public commissions. Almost no one makes their actual living doing that sort of art.

You don't need a fine art degree to paint portraits, you just need practice and practical training. In fact a fine art education will probably be a drawback because it won't particularly value or even teach technical ability. There is basic technical support for workshops and possibly elective courses for things like bronze casting but broadly you are expected to find out for yourself how to create the thing you want to create.

What you get from a fine art degree is bags of practice at thinking about what you see around you in people and culture, at being self motivated and self critical, at facing and handling other people criticising (sorry, critiquing) your work without fluffy niceness, at hustling, networking and making your own opportunities. For the right type of person it's a toolkit that serves you well in almost any role.

People who do well on fine art degrees tend to be curious, interested in new things and new ideas, not scared of being laughed at and brave enough to put themselves and their ideas out there. That plus the training in hustling and resilience means we turn up in emerging areas (in my case, the internet in the mid 90s) and some of us end up making careers in them. I can guarantee right now more fine art students are interested in and experimenting with AI than are feeling threatened by it. Some of them will find those experiments turn into a lucrative career, not as an artist but in the field of AI or in a practical application of it.

So in summary, definitely not a degree that's a route to a sure fire good job, definitely not a degree for sensitive or shy people, but can be a really great foundation for an intelligent and unconventional person to have a career in something that doesn't even exist when they join.

It's also one of, if not, the lowest paid degree.

Most tech colleges run them - if you look up the UAL Foundation Diploma there is loads of information on it. (UAL + University of Arts London)

not sure where you are but I live on the Surrey/Hants borders and lost of the FE colleges offer it after A Levels. As other PPs say a) most Art degrees require it or, at least, prefer it (am guessing because it gives a basic introduction to most essential techniques and saves the university/Art schools from having to spend a year focusing on them) and b) it helps the student know that they really want to spend another 3-4 years doing it. For example, my DD did a UAL short course (lots on line and in person and available from 16 btw) in animation, which was what my DD wanted to study. Two weeks in and she came home in tears as she realised that the idea of 3 years of sitting on a computer animating random objects for coursework was so hellish an idea that she couldn’t begin to imagine it. She’d taken the course to beef up her UCAS form and was devastated (nov last year).

Eventually DD realised it was great that she discovered now, rather than later. So we’re taking Classics/archaeology now, with a view to doing an MA in illustration (museums and archeological sites apparently employ artist to draw artefact's as they should look from fragments, or landscape images of what the site looked like in its day etc - just one option she’s open to now!).

This is one of the saddest posts I have read on Mumsnet

Art degree here! I did mine when it was less than £3k/yr - no way would I pay today's prices. You get VERY little input, it's mostly self-taught (just with the benefit of being amongst a community of artists).
I chose not to pursue art as a career as I felt the pressure to make it work financially would suck all the joy out of it.
I ended up in a managerial role in a creative field (not MAKING art), which is stable and well paid enough that I could go part time and do art as a hobby on the side if I wanted to.

But realistic. If you want your child to have choices in career then an art degree is pointless. They can do art as a hobby but they need other skills to earn a living. It doesn't have to be STEM, just something an employer will not be put off by.

I'd agree with all of this and I would also add..

There were quite a few students on my fine art degree who were the strongest technically in drawing and painting - in the sense that they could illustrate something in the most lifelike way - and they ended up with the worst grades.

Because they had the technical skill and they had relied on that to get them so far, but they lacked the ability to develop, to experiment, and weren't skilled at articulating the vision behind their work.

If your daughter's passion is portraiture in the sense that she enjoys creating lifelike depictions of what she sees, there's a possibility she may not enjoy the typical art course.

This is why the foundation degree is often so valuable as it's much closer to what the Fine Art degree would be like compared to A Level Art at school, and will give you and her so much more confidence in your decision.

my thinking (as an artist and designer) is the really skilled artists will be in more demand. I'm not talking digital art, but real art e.g. painting, sculpture etc that has real talent and skill - because it will become more valuable as human made - provided it shows real ingenuity and human genius - in the age of AI.

That said my design work (I'm a graphic designer) I'm not so sure about it yet! Could go either way. But AI is definitely taking over a lot of digital art and design jobs.