Uncle Henry Is Wrong — There's A Lot You Can Do With An Art and Design Degree

About three million college students will approach graduation day wondering what the future holds. As if news about the sputtering economy and uncertain job prospects were not depressing enough, many will also hear from well-meaning relatives, "What are you going to do with that degree?" Uncle Henry may give a free pass to the biology, economics, and chemistry majors, but not to those who pursued creative writing, visual arts, theater, design, dance or music. The data come from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), a research effort led by Indiana and Arizona State Universities, supported by the Surdna Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. Respondents were at different stages of their careers. They came from more than 150 arts programs from a diverse set of institutions. Video produced by Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts _________________________ DATA SOURCES: General Social Survey (GSS) survey on happiness: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/070417.jobs.shtml http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/07/pdf/070417.jobs.pdf The happy artist: an empirical application of the work-preference model: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10824-012-9179-1 Happiness in the arts—International evidence on artists’ job satisfaction: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651300298X National Survey of Recent College Graduates: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvyrecentgrads/ Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP): http://snaap.indiana.edu/