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Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

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Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#31

Post by crow_t_robot »

stolenmerch wrote: post #21

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…

Everyone knows that Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the literature world without all his advanced degrees in literature.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#32

Post by [deleted] »

crow_t_robot wrote: post #31
stolenmerch wrote: post #21

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…

Everyone knows that Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the literature world without all his advanced degrees in literature.

[deleted]

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#33

Post by leviathant »

Hacker News and puppetry, a relevant-to-me crossover I never thought I'd see, and here I am at the start of the business day with no time to really dig in, because of the day job.

"Two years ago, the number of students hovered near zero" - I get the larger picture, but any guesses as to what might have hurt attendance to a performing arts major in 2021?

Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills you learn in puppetry can go well beyond, you know, the entertainment industry. But arts and humanities in the American education system have been gutted over the last few decades, starting in primary education, and continuing up into higher education.

I stumbled across the puppetry community over a decade ago, and it's been one of the most enriching parts of my life ever since. It's a real shame how much of a struggle it is to get support for the fine arts in this country.

Edit: This is a really great read. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#34

Post by stolenmerch »

crow_t_robot wrote: post #31
stolenmerch wrote: post #21

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…

Everyone knows that Cormac McCarthy wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the literature world without all his advanced degrees in literature.

English Lit and Creative Writing are usually not the same programs or degrees. The point being, if you don't have a marketable product (like a novel) and instead only have papers you wrote in school, the degree is your marketable product.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#35

Post by nonameiguess »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #20
NickC25 wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

Depends on the STEM. A whole lot of experimental science depends upon lab equipment that is either too expensive, too dangerous, or both to try and self-learn. Or it might be totally inaccessible no matter what. If you want to be an astronomer, you're gonna need time on one of the 4 meter scopes that is on top of a mountain that they don't just give public access to. Even if you had the billion dollars to build one in your backyard, the light pollution would make it useless. Wanna do medical research, you can't legally except under the supervision of somebody who already knows what they're doing and has access to a clinical population.

Programming and math are probably the two you can reliably self-teach, but probably the only two, and "programming" in at least some contexts might also benefit from extremely high performance or large capacity equipment you're not gonna find in a typical homelab or be able to afford renting from a public cloud.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#36

Post by dsr_ »

mdip wrote: post #25
dsr_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I tend to agree with this statement over "the economic model for teaching everything is terrible". Bear with me as I'm trying not to be petty by taking issue with the word "everything"[0] and I agree that this statement would be true about the majority of how traditional in-person education is done in the United States, especially at the (public) school and college/univ…

Apprenticeship is an economic model. As a skills-transfer model, it tends to be very good at common practices, mediocre at rare practices, and terrible at theory. In order to get expertise in a field, one generally needs to understand the underlying theory.

We used to teach doctors by apprenticeship. Then it turned out that underlying theory was incredibly important to diagnosis and treatment for all the uncommon ailments -- and in a large, long-lived population, uncommon ailments come up a lot. It turns out that medicine is such a large field that doctors need both formal schooling and apprenticeship -- so there's a required supervised period.

Puppetry is a child of acting and sculpture and clothing. There are specialists who are great at one part and not at others; there are generalists who do everything. The practical parts of these fields are probably amenable to apprenticeship; the theoretical parts, not so much.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#37

Post by driggs »

WV is among the bottom 5 poorest states in the US, with West Virginia University critical for providing affordable in-state college education. WVU is urgently dealing with a $45-million budget shortfall.

I know two graduates of the Puppetry program, and neither of them work professionally in any puppetry-related career. They may as well have graduated with any liberal arts degree. The Puppetry major gave them a way to prove their "quirkiness" in college.

Here's the course requirements for the BFA in Puppetry: http://catalog.wvu.edu/undergraduate/collegeofcreativearts/d...

It looks like there are two puppetry-specific courses, with the vast majority of courses coming from the more general Theatre program with Liberal Arts core.

I don't know what the Puppetry BFA costs the university, but it's always been a joke to WVU students, and doesn't seem to serve West Virginia residents in a meaningful way.

(Source: WVU grad and local, who received an affordable in-state CS/Engineering degree, and now works in and supports WV's tiny but growing tech industry)

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#38

Post by awesomeMilou »

leviathant wrote: post #33

Hacker News and puppetry, a relevant-to-me crossover I never thought I'd see, and here I am at the start of the business day with no time to really dig in, because of the day job. "Two years ago, the number of students hovered near zero" - I get the larger picture, but any guesses as to what might have hurt attendance to a performing arts major in 2021? Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills yo…

> Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills you learn in puppetry can go well beyond, you know, the entertainment industry.

I am genuinely curious to hear where in the day to day of the tech industry you'd draw parallels to puppetry.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#39

Post by TimPC »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #20
NickC25 wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

I think STEM is suited to academia in multiple ways: first, the chances of success at learning it seem to be higher in a structured, rigorous program compared to independently. One of the problems with online universities is that they don't apply enough deadline pressure so in many cases only 20% of students who sign up for a course even finish it. If you want to put four years into something and reliably get somewhere then an academic program still seems like your best for that. The other piece of the puzzle is that a STEM degree is a useful credential that can help substantially in the job market compared to being self-taught. Furthermore, most STEM fields have job markets where salaries that can realistically make getting a degree a worthwhile investment are obtainable. I think it's this combination of good way to learn, valuable credential and decent cost/benefit that make STEM degrees make more sense.

Re: Can a puppetry major survive a flagship’s financial crisis? Should it?

#40

Post by crow_t_robot »

nvahalik wrote: post #12
jkingsbery wrote: post #11

Not 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…

> 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…

If you can take out a $100k loan and 4 years off work to get a degree then you should be able to do the same to apprentice somewhere. I get what you are saying, though.
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