By Lily Hill’17, Contributor
Illustration by Nikki Rosiello ’17, Lighter Fare Editor
Seven more art schools attended the Suburban College Fair on September 16th than attended last year’s fair. This week, four art, design, and performing arts schools will be visiting Cincinnati Country Day to talk to our interested students. Along with this increase of art-specific colleges courting our students, parents worry that their children will not have a stable career path when attending these colleges and pursuing these majors.
Art, design, and performing arts are very competitive areas of study. “Colleges like Parsons, DAP, and SCAD come to Country Day because they’re all competing more fiercely for our students” says Mrs. Sarah Beyreis, Director of College Counseling. Many parents say they would rather have their children attend a larger school with a variety of diverse majors than a specifically artistic school. If students attend these diverse schools they have the option of changing their major throughout their college experience. Going to a specifically art school makes your theoretical switch from being an art major to a pre-law major more difficult because you would have to switch colleges altogether.
Most students think that attending an art school would offer better education in that major than state schools which are harder to get in to and more competitive. Attending a performing arts school offers a good education, and performing arts schools may accept more students in that department of interest. In contrast, Elon–a general interest university in North Carolina–has one of the best performing arts programs and accepts only twenty people into their Performing Arts Department. The same thing goes for the University of Alabama. It has a very impressive arts program but only accepts fifteen people into its Performing Arts Department. These smaller classes ensure that every person has the chance to become amazing in their field of interest with more one-on-one help from professors.
Although some parents still frown on the choice to pursue any type of art as a career, they are more open to it than before. For example, pursuing design these days can be beneficial for business and marketing. Mrs. Beyreis described design as being “sexy and appealing” to businesses. In the college search, it is important for kids and their parents to have a discussion about which type of college would be better for them. With the increase of arts schools coming to Country Day, more choices are becoming available for students interested in pursuing artistic career paths.
