answers1: There are always jobs available - if one disregards the
disconnect between a performing arts backround or degree and what one
gets paid for. Jobs ranging from cooking fast food, waiting tables,
working for collection agencies, desk jobs at a hotel, etc., to higher
stress jobs like sales on commission, or higher risk jobs like in
construction trades. Pick up the employment ads from any major metro
newspaper and there you go. <br>
<br>
Unlike High School, where a good school will strive to prep you to be
a good citizen and to have a basic education for life, colleges will
sell you whatever you want to spend your tuition on (or your parent's
money), regardless of its "market value" in the real world. Nearly all
of the responsibility to choose wisely then depends on you. So here
you are, asking. I hope you now hear the answers offered. <br>
<br>
I hope you pursue your interests in the performing arts, but I
strongly recommend relegating them to second priority, vs. some field
where there is stronger demand for trained people. Business degrees
offer some potential, while the "graying of America" continues to
drive the health care industry, many different possibilities there.
You are right at the edge of making such decisions, and I hope you
choose the less-fun but better-paid path. <br>
<br>
The arts will always be there. It's just so much nicer not to have to
try to play with sore or injured fingers from a hard "day job", and to
have money in the bank to buy what you want to perform with.
answers2: There <br>
are <br>
no <br>
jobs. (Added - in the arts, anymore. Agreeing with Danny - there are
always jobs - the horrible, low-level kind, and the decent-wage, "I
can still perform where I want, because my bills are paid by GOOD
employment" kind.) <br>
<br>
People with multiple degrees from Juilliard are not finding work.
Immoral as it is - there is no way to make it ILLEGAL - colleges
continue to accept people who are qualified, get then thru a program,
graduate them - and them they are DONE - next, please. There is
NOTHING that says you will ever be employed in a filed just because
you LIKE it. I have three degrees in classical music, and have made
this my career since 1971 - but that was THEN. I retired from my
conducting/teaching job in 2008, and have great insurance, and a heap
of $$ put away - as do MANY of us - but that is not going to happen
now. You have a better chance of landing an NBA contract than ever
getting steady paid work in the arts. By all means, study for your
own enjoyment - but learn something that PAYS, and will give you a
decent life. This is NOT *selling out* - it is making intelligent
choices. "Selling out" is doing low-level disgusting things loosely
connected with your art, just so you can SAY you work in the arts - I
have played almost a thousand weddings at elegant country clubs, and I
have classical colleagues who think THAT is selling out - until they
find out what I PAY my musicians. Now those gigs are gone - people
bring an iPod - seriously. <br>
<br>
So before you invest one more minute or one more dollar in this,
thinking it is going to feed you and pay your rent - wake up, open
your eyes. You may think you are one in a million - but you are
really one OF a million. Sorry - but true.
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