Whenever I go to my home town and someone asks me what degree I’m doing they will always immediately follow my response with:
Is there any money in that?
I want to reply with:
No, no there isn’t any money in it at all and that is exactly why I am studying it.
But I know that’d be rude so I usually just do one of those fake laugh chuckles and say:
I hope so.
My sister is about to start a degree in applied finance and so when people have asked her what she’s doing they always nod approvingly without asking if she will be paid for what she will do. My mother recently told me that when she was asked what my sister was doing her friend started to complain about her ‘lazy kids’ pursuing ‘non traditional’ occupations. My mum called me and told me this story to ask why it was happening because her understanding was that doing what you enjoyed or were good at was all that really mattered.
About a year ago when I told a friend of mine that she was thinking of studying finance or even thinking about medicine, he asked if my parents were disappointed in me for my degree choice. I said that they were happy I was doing what I enjoyed and getting good marks and he rolled his eyes and said they probably just told me that. I highly doubt it.
In turn, in my first year of uni when I was in college the arts degree jokes just never stopped. I don’t even understand why they cared what faculty we were in, were they just upset we had more free time? I honestly don’t know. I actually remember in our mid year publication there was a big rant about the upcoming influx of media, art, film, and music students due to a new bar opening on campus near us and how they’d be there constantly because they don’t have real degrees.
I’ve always maintained that one should study what they enjoy. I don’t know if doing a degree in an in demand profession will equate to success if you’re not really enjoying yourself. I guess it also depends on how you define success. I feel like doing anything you didn’t enjoy just for the money would be a bit soul sucking. That said, I have a friend who plans to work in a job she hates after she graduates for two years then take two years off and repeat the process because it’s paid very well – so that’d probably be a fun deal.
I feel like the following image, which also doubles as the featured image, is impossibly appropriate to share given the content of this post. I think it’s hilarious, I know so many English majors going through the same thing:
haha awesome cartoon! I’m going to send it to people when they scoff at my writing and publishing degree
Awesome post, and great sentiment.
I didn’t know Australia had such a traditional outlook with respect to the arts. An eye-opener.