I received a BA and MFA in small, idiosyncratic arts programs even more niche and unmarketable than puppetry. After graduation and realizing I'd never be employed, I set off taking free online CS courses and programming tutorials. In hindsight, I really wish I would have done it exactly opposite. Study computer science in college and take a couple of arts classes as electives or pursue it as a part-time hobby. It all worked out, but it reminds me how many of these arts and humanities programs are legacies of a bygone economic era. They are also a product of credentialism, in which it becomes difficult or impossible to demonstrate your knowledge in Literature, for example, without having the degree.
Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
21–30 of 63 posts
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why not go apprentice yourself somewhere There has been a big push in the last 20 years or so to make sure that everyone makes a "living wage". This, in turn, makes it nearly impossible for people who want to learn a trade while making something (anything) from actually doing so. Their work and time is basically worthless. They can't be paid accordingly, so they just don't... Unless you want to volunteer, but most…
Skilled trades apprenticeships in states with a sane labor culture are well paid and sought after positions.
One distinction is between being an apprentice to some craft that doesn't pay much under the best of circumstances and being an at least minimally useful apprentice/helper to a skilled trade that is pretty highly compensated. It's a lot easier to pay the latter decently than the former.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It serves no critical purpose. Axe it. Well, there goes pretty much everything interesting in college.
Engineering and sciences are super interesting. Heck, puppets sound sooo boring. Literature sounds incredibly boring. Theatre? So boring professors had to give extra credit so people would attend. Meanwhile our robotics senior project had a huge portion of the school watching because we were shooting projectiles. (but really my favorites were chemistry lab, and quantum chemistry(PChem2), maybe my programming classes…
Robotics also sounds cool, but while I'm sure the showy performances for the students were interesting, the nitty-gritty of programming and fine detail probably wouldn't be. Whereas in literature, it is the deep analysis of a text that brings greater richness and makes it more fully satisfying to read, the pleasure is not necessarily from the spectacle but its careful consideration.
Borges is an author who many of my friends in the sciences enjoy. He explores ideas that you may find interesting; try The Library of Babel [0], its very short and easy to read (like most of his works). Another novel which you may find perversely enjoyable is Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel, which contains a series of descriptions of strange and fantastical machines in fine detail, each associated with a different and increasingly deranged tale.
You might also be interested in the intersection of literature and computer science with Sanskrit, the first formalized language claimed to have been made "context-free" 2500 years ago (though I wouldn't say so), which has a rich literary tradition deeply intertwined with its structure and logic. There are many other examples of literatures you may find interesting, but I'll leave that pursuit up to you!
[0]https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content...
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It serves no critical purpose. Axe it. Well, there goes pretty much everything interesting in college.
Engineering and sciences are super interesting. Heck, puppets sound sooo boring. Literature sounds incredibly boring. Theatre? So boring professors had to give extra credit so people would attend. Meanwhile our robotics senior project had a huge portion of the school watching because we were shooting projectiles. (but really my favorites were chemistry lab, and quantum chemistry(PChem2), maybe my programming classes…
I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm.
This...
> Heck, puppets sound sooo boring.
...followed by...
>Meanwhile our robotics senior project had a huge portion of the school watching because we were shooting projectiles.
...sure says a lot. You can draw a direct line from the art of puppetry to the evolution of robotics.
My degree is in computer science, I wrote code for ages, now I'm a presales engineer regularly meeting with C-suite types and their engineering departments. Nearly every year for the last decade, I've also on staff at the annual National Puppetry conference (as a musician) where I get to work with some of the quick-witted, talented problem solvers I've met.
Working in puppets means working in costume design, set design, creative writing, storytelling, engineering, lighting design, sound design, project management, the whole gamut. I credit the experience I get working with puppeteers for helping advance my career as a 'computer nerd'
What I find bizarre is that we're in such a consumer-driven culture, but taking humanities out of focus in education has changed how people perceive creativity. The most boring people in the world are talking about using AI to create derivative art, while ignoring centuries of history around training for the arts.
>Literature sounds incredibly boring. Theatre? So boring professors had to give extra credit so people would attend.
To each their own, but oof.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#25Not everything that we learn has to be learned in college. Not sure if 100% accurate, but a quick google search shows WVU tuition is about $9k for in-state, $25k out of state... does it really make sense for someone to spend $100k (or $36k, for West Virginia residents) to learn puppetry? If that's your thing, great, why not go apprentice yourself somewhere to learn that skill instead? Or offer a class or two in puppe…
Your argument is not "this is a thing which should not be taught" but rather "the economic model of teaching this is bad". And I agree. But I would also say that the economic model for teaching everything is terrible. So, improving that model will make everything better. Attempting to special-case a field does not improve things.
> the economic model of teaching *this* is bad.
Looking at it "from a step back" -- from the perspective of any other product -- the cost is the teacher/facility/equipment and environment to support a touchy activity (learning) and multiple human beings attempting to do so at the same time. It's probably the most expensive way to transfer knowledge available to us and it's the default way most of us are taught.
In-person hands-on teaching falls victim to the basic problems of scale. Profits increase as the number of students per teacher increases but -- in most cases -- this negatively impacts the quality of the delivered education.
I don't think it's a "wild guess" to say that a lot of us meandering in the comments are self-taught. Sure, we went to college. Some of us even have advanced degrees[1]. But if you write software -- daily -- you've largely learned the details from somewhere other than a classroom. Most of the time it's been "for free" by reading others' code, online tutorials, actual documentation, etc. These are extremely efficient ways of both teaching and learning -- the single effort put into teaching is able to be consumed by limitless numbers of people.
There are many modalities to teaching/learning that are more efficient/provide for a better "economic model for teaching" than "traditional in-person education". One that we seem to have stepped further away from is apprenticeships. Puppetry -- though I have no experience in it -- is probably something that deeply benefits from in-person knowledge transfer and it seems like the kind of work that has probably only been taught via apprenticeship in the past.
[0] Love it when my kids do that ... "oh yeah, but what if ...?"
[1] That's not meant to imply anything negative about such degrees.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#26Not everything that we learn has to be learned in college. Not sure if 100% accurate, but a quick google search shows WVU tuition is about $9k for in-state, $25k out of state... does it really make sense for someone to spend $100k (or $36k, for West Virginia residents) to learn puppetry? If that's your thing, great, why not go apprentice yourself somewhere to learn that skill instead? Or offer a class or two in puppe…
> does it really make sense for someone to spend $100k (or $36k, for West Virginia residents) to learn puppetry?
No. School should be free.
> why not go apprentice yourself somewhere to learn that skill instead?
Because schools should help set those internships and apprenticeships up.
> puppetry by itself is pretty niche, and the point of liberal arts is to be more broad
You have that strangely inverted. Because liberal arts are so broad as to include the arts and because the arts are so broad as to include puppetry, the point of liberal arts is to offer niche studies like puppetry.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It serves no critical purpose. Axe it. Well, there goes pretty much everything interesting in college.
Engineering and sciences are super interesting. Heck, puppets sound sooo boring. Literature sounds incredibly boring. Theatre? So boring professors had to give extra credit so people would attend. Meanwhile our robotics senior project had a huge portion of the school watching because we were shooting projectiles. (but really my favorites were chemistry lab, and quantum chemistry(PChem2), maybe my programming classes…
>... my favorites...
Ah, therein lies the rub. Your post reads like you're applying your own tastes/interests to, well, everyone. You are not everyone else.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Not everything that we learn has to be learned in college. This honestly is the crux of the issue with higher education. In fact, most things we learn outside of STEM in academia can be learned elsewhere - literature, languages, arts, etc. I'm 100% for the humanities, and majored in them myself. But they shouldn't cost a fortune to study, nor should they really be in a narrow results-focused academic environment. No…
> In fact, most things we learn outside of STEM in academia can be learned elsewhere - literature, languages, arts, etc. Why specify STEM as being an exception to that rule? Are people unable to learn programming or math outside of academia? It's a shame the arts aren't seen as valid jobs and so are unworthy of investment.
This is critically important, because in my experience it can work both ways.
Sure, you can learn writing and exposition on the side, but you'll learn it faster to a greater precision in good courses. You can also learn math and computer science, or whatever "on the side" through research projects and work. It might take longer but it can happen.
It always strikes me as strange to see all these postings to open STEM coursework, but then this idea that someone who is really bright who just didn't happen to major in a STEM program can't pick up a lot of STEM experience through non-coursework experiences.
I know of someone who had history undergrad and grad degrees, for example, but who became heavily involved in computer science and imaging research because of some project involving imaging some artifacts or fragile records (I don't remember what, although it was in north/east africa). It launched a new line of work that was pretty much all computer science and image processing. I suspect by the end of it, which was years, they were probably comparable to someone with a comp sci bachelor's degree in their knowledge. I certainly got the sense they were more competent in computer science by the end of it than some of of the CS bachelor-level graduates I've worked with.
Stuff like this happens all the time. I'm not saying that there's no value in a STEM degree, but there's this weird fixation on certifications in general that's grossly inaccurate. My sense is it happens to make HR departments' jobs easier, nothing more.
We live in this world where it's assumed competency is equal to test scores on a general achievement test, and skillset is equal to degree or certificate. It leads to these gross distortions and over and underemployments — not only in the sense of who is being hired as an employee, but who is being recruited to accomplish tasks and solve problems in professional capacities in general.
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engineering and sciences are super interesting. Heck, puppets sound sooo boring. Literature sounds incredibly boring. Theatre? So boring professors had to give extra credit so people would attend. Meanwhile our robotics senior project had a huge portion of the school watching because we were shooting projectiles. (but really my favorites were chemistry lab, and quantum chemistry(PChem2), maybe my programming classes…
I seem to recall one pretty famous CEO talk about how their company was successful because "it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing". But yeah, let's throw all that liberal arts shit overboard - who needs it.
> because "it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing".
Liberal arts includes the humanities. There's something distinctly Oedipal about that company . . .
Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Not everything that we learn has to be learned in college. This honestly is the crux of the issue with higher education. In fact, most things we learn outside of STEM in academia can be learned elsewhere - literature, languages, arts, etc. I'm 100% for the humanities, and majored in them myself. But they shouldn't cost a fortune to study, nor should they really be in a narrow results-focused academic environment. No…
> In fact, most things we learn outside of STEM in academia can be learned elsewhere - literature, languages, arts, etc. Why specify STEM as being an exception to that rule? Are people unable to learn programming or math outside of academia? It's a shame the arts aren't seen as valid jobs and so are unworthy of investment.
A lot of STEM requires expensive equipment that most individuals cannot afford with either money, space, and time to operate safely; though they are exceptions.
Also when a history major forgets a fact or two in their realm, it’s not as catastrophic as an aerospace or civil engineer forgetting a key fact in their domain. The gains from STEM are also more concrete and immediate compared to the liberal arts.