Every art major hears:
“Oh, it must be nice being an art major.”
“Way to take the easy way out.”
“I wish I could just take photos all day.”
Many people believe that being an art major is easy. We don’t have many tests in our studio courses, we rarely have mid-terms, and we spend more time DOING things than sitting through lectures. From the outside, our classes probably do look more entertaining than sitting in a three-hour long business lecture. I’m not going to deny that our classes are entertaining because I believe that they are, but that doesn't mean they are always easy or fun. Just like any other class, art classes are a struggle. Each class teaches us something new that we must work with and not all of them are easy. In typography, I had to learn all of the parts of a letter — what they’re called and whether or not they should be used. I learned different types of fonts and page set-ups. In my photography classes, I learned how to develop film. That’s right, our photography classes are more than taking a picture and uploading it to Facebook. I deal with chemicals and measurements and timing things out perfectly. It’s not easy.
Speaking of chemicals, being an art major does not make us incapable of doing math or science. I was almost a math teacher before I took up my true passion for art. As previously stated, we deal with chemicals and draw out blueprints for sculptures dealing with measurements and angles. Just because we are creative does not mean that we lack mathematical abilities. We can do those things as well, we just chose not to make a career out of it.
Though our classes look easy, things hit the fan come art history courses. We have 50 photos for which we have to remember the artist, date, country, and every single detail about it. No multiple choice. All fill in the blank.
Have fun.
We may not spend a lot of time studying, but our projects take FOREVER! Our classes are three hours a day, two days a week. We still have things to do outside of class too. We often have to redo things three to four times before hearing, again, that it doesn't quite look right.
Aside from the time, most of our assignments are digital. We have to save them on flash drives and hard drives. Anyone who has had a flash drive knows that THEY CRASH. A crashed flash drive equals lost files which equals lost assignments. We need to have back-ups and then back-ups for our back-ups, and they are not cheap!
Being an art major is more than drawing pretty pictures. It takes a lot of dedication and time. Just like any other major, art majors put in a lot of work and we do have classes that stress us out more than any other.
It is an honor to be a part of the art program and I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
