Why arts degrees are still relevant

IT might have a reputation for being a bludge course, but graduates from this faculty might have the highest earning potential. So what, exactly, is an arts degree, and why are they important?

ARTS has gotten a bad rap over the years.

Often referred to as a bludge course or fluff degree, it has long been revered as the course you do when you have no idea what you want to be when you grow up.

Despite its reputation, however, arts is one of the most popular study areas at Victorian tertiary providers. Last year alone it attracted more than 31,000 applications across the nine major universities.

“The envy and sniping about whether or not a Bachelor of Arts is a good qualification is an old school position,” says University of Melbourne professor Mark Considine, dean of the Faculty of Arts. “There are thousands of people trying to get in the door to do arts degrees and the arts skills set is becoming more central to the economic story as well as to the social story.”

Arts degrees are about learning how to learn.

SO WHAT IS AN ARTS DEGREE, REALLY?

Traditionally, the arts faculty has covered the humanities and social sciences — so everything from creative writing and criminology to philosophy and psychology. That makes arts a fairly attractive menu in terms of the different things you can choose to major in.

“It’s a course that’s built around intellectual development rather than specific vocational skills,” Prof Considine says. “Where other programs offered in the tertiary marketplace are very vocational skills-oriented, arts students learn how to learn. It’s the building block of intellectual development — thinking, communicating, analysing, managing complex data.

“Compared to more narrowly vocational degrees and compared to many other disciplines, arts students are better at complex analysis, better at high-level communication and better at critical appraisal of complicated social and human issues.

“They’re trained to be very good at the complex story and very adaptive at the communication side of things and that makes them unique in the occupation band.

“Those vocational skills will come later.”

Being able to select subjects that interest you is one of the reasons arts degrees are so popular.

WHY IS IT SUCH A POPULAR COURSE?

Part of arts’ charm is that it allows students to cherry pick what they want to study.

The ability to tailor your degree to your specific interests has seen hordes of students flow into arts courses for decades.

“There is a percentage of high school graduates who already know what they want to spend the rest of their lives doing but it’s a shrinking percentage,” Prof Considine says. “At age 17 or 18, you still need the opportunity to develop your intellectual interests and to find your passion. We don’t want you trading away your passion. That’s not going to end well for you and not going to end well for us. Many students think ‘I got an ATAR of x so I have to be a dentist’. Actually, no you don’t.”

But personalisation is also part of the reason arts majors are often labelled as fluffy or lacking in discipline. This doesn’t have to be the case. The key to keeping your course on the right track is to start having discussions about your end-goal from the outset.

“There are some structural features that help to steadily refine your vocational appetite,” Prof Considine says. “We encourage, even at first year level, the curriculum and conversation to include — if you’ve chosen anthropology, for example, what do anthropologists end up doing — and building the course around that.”

It’s a myth that arts graduates are not employable.

BUT ARTS WON’T LEAD TO A JOB

As for the oft-quoted discourse that arts degrees don’t lead to jobs, Prof Considine says that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“It’s a misnomer that arts doesn’t have a career at the end of it,” he says. “Science has gone up and down in terms of the employability of grads and commerce is generally a little higher but in a narrower range of jobs. Graduates who have completed a Masters in arts — their income earning is second only to law. It’s higher than commerce, law, engineering.

“Some of them slot into already existing pathways — they’re go off into law, teaching, journalism, the public service, but there’s another group who will actually make their own jobs.

“Many start by being self-employed or develop start-up companies.”

But the best thing about arts degrees, Prof Considine says, is that they have perennial appeal.

“The thing that always keeps me excited is how many older people — who might’ve done something else in their undergrad days — want to come back and do the history or philosophy or sociology studies they didn’t do back then.

“It’s a whole of life pursuit.”

New humanities are driving an arts revolution.

SO WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF ARTS?

“The two areas that have really boomed inside arts degrees are what we would call the new humanities. Things like media and communication, editing, arts management —

they’ve grown and grown and are showing no signs of stopping. In fact, undergrad and post-grad areas in those new humanities areas have doubled in the last 10 years and look set to double again in the next five.”

“The second area that has also boomed is the social science side — including psychology and the caring industries. There has been a boom in the broader range of personal and human services. There is now a market for training of all sorts — such as personal development, personal services in health and wellbeing, and ageing services.”

“Big data is another massive area. We’ll soon be seeing a new generation of quantitative analytical skills flowing into all industries.”