Art students get a bad reputation, but what we’re doing is useful

Contrary to rumour we don’t sit inside and watch TV all day


I belong to a particular clique of shall we say – special – people otherwise known as “creative types”. We’re slightly more unorthodox than your average Joe, or so we like to think, and we’re more likely to pull off socks and sandals as a fashion statement rather than a “German abroad” faux pas. We’re the dreaded Art student.

We take a lot of unnecessary aggro for our degree choices. We don’t really know why, but it seems to offend others we’re allowed to study at the same university. “It’s just cutting and sticking” you say, “anyone could do that”. Well you know what? Words hurt. And we’re just as useful as any other student.

I learnt how to edit images with my very important creative degree.

In an economic climate where we’re paying £27,000 for tuition fees; alongside a loan engulfed by extortion rent prices (especially in London) we’re all feeling abused by the current education system. Queueing along the street to view ex-council flats before getting into a distressing bidding war isn’t something we ever thought we’d be doing. “Fancy a foodshop at Iceland tomorrow?” isn’t a sentence we thought would pass our lips, and never in a million years did we think we’d sit on a bus. We dread loan day because the money coming into our accounts leaves just as quickly, ensuring we have a relatively stable, albeit thin, roof over our heads for the next term.

The worst part is, we don’t know when it’ll get any better. We don’t know if it’ll get any better. We might be paying £750 a month rent for a single room in a flatshare for the next ten years. We don’t have guaranteed jobs when we graduate and the only thing separating me from you, and 100 other applicants, is I’ve added a “why you should hire me” section to my CV, which formally states I have never done crack and I have my own Netflix account. So in such an uncertain graduate world, why not choose to do something I actually enjoy for three years?

Sometimes I wear an apron to prepare myself for womanhood, it’s not like I’m going to actually have a career haha x

Creative degrees aren’t necessarily as “essential” as others, I won’t deny that. If you compare the importance of a degree in Graphic Design against Medicine, there’s always going to be a clear inequality. They’re going to save lives, and I’m not going to find a cure for cancer, nor am I going to be a politician that’ll single handedly end all war, but… are you? If a pregnant woman started crowning on the tube, I wouldn’t clear the area, roll up my sleeves and shout “I’ve got this”. But I can’t imagine someone with a diploma in Accounting would either.

When I say I’m doing a degree in Fashion Textiles, I’m generally met by a bewildered stare and a long silence. “You can do a degree in that?” Even my bemused landlord, who studied Economics, has asked me about it on three separate occasions. The only people who hit you with: “It’s just designing clothes, anyone could do that” are generally the people who you’d never want to design your clothes. “You can make money out of this?” and “so what do you actually do?” are also strong contenders, but my favourite argument is “so you’re basically a wallpaper designer, yeah?”. Yeah mate — wallpaper that you can wear.

People are generally under the assumption having a degree will make them more employable, which actually isn’t the case. Some of us go to university to quite literally further our education. Making cushions in GCSE Textiles doesn’t really prepare you for industry standard, and by going to university I am learning on hand from people who have been there, designed the t-shirt and now they’re wearing it. I’m not doing a degree because I think it’ll look alright on a bit of paper when I’m fighting for a junior designer position, I’m doing it because I’m learning about stuff I didn’t have a clue existed a year ago.

We’re all sad because we’re thinking about debt.

The “middle class fascists” and “Tory spawn” labels posh Art students acquired were funny at first, but now it’s getting a little boring. We’ve also become subject to monosyllabic comments from idiots online. You know, the type of miserable bastards bored at their entry level data analyst jobs? The ones who dissipate their time between getting rejected by girls on Tinder and trying to ruin our finger painting fun. They go home every night to the loft conversion at their mum’s house, climb into their single beds and spend some more time staring at a crusty Girls of Zoo calendar from 2012. Even then, they’re still paying tribute to the graphic designers behind such moral publications.

But actually, the creative industry in the UK is currently just as valuable as the financial sector. “Idiots like us’ are generating over £71 billion per year, or £8 million by the hour. Infact, the value and potential of a creative graduate has never been higher, with VC firms (Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) now preferring to hire people with degrees in design. 

Last year the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan warned school children who focus their studies exclusively on arts and humanities subjects are risking their future career paths, claiming such choices would hold us back for the rest of our lives. But she’s wrong. Recent research by Falmouth University and the Centre for Economics and Business Research also predicts the creative industries will be worth over £100 billion by 2018, expected to provide 1.39 million jobs in the same time; amounting to 4 per cent of total UK employment in the next four years.

We don’t need to be told our degrees are “real” or “worth it”, because it’s increasingly apparent we might actually beat you in the fight for a job. We’re big, and ugly, and colourful enough to make our own decisions. Let us worry about our student debt and career paths, and you worry about yours. Isn’t it time you picked on someone else and let us get on with trying to colour within the lines?