You Don’t Need an Arts Degree
For many, an MFA or even a BFA is a glorified commodity, one that you don’t actually need to be a creative.
Originally, I got my start as a creative person in high school. I went to a small arts high school where I, along with fourteen other kids, were picked to major in literary arts. At this school, we did a mixture of everything, from podcasts to multimedia work, journalism, screenwriting and playwriting, poetry, and poetry. Literally, to even graduate from this program, you had to do a senior thesis, one that many people actually self-published. And so I was a self-published author at seventeen. That book no longer exists on the Internet, but it holds a special place in my heart.
But throughout this little creative journey, getting to where I am today, you constantly see that so-and-so famous writer got their MFA from gasp the Iowa Writers Workshop. If you didn’t get into there, or even the NYU MFA as a writer, god forbid your career. And nowadays, with the academic market so tough, then you need to go on and get your PhD if you want a decent shot and teaching writing in a college setting.
After talking to many writers and artists, some with PhDs, many with MFAs, the consensus I’ve gotten is the same: MFAs are, essentially, a scam in a way. Let’s dig deep into this and why it’s a thing.
MFAs and BFAs as as Capitalistic Commodities
Like many skills, writing and art are ones that take a lot of practice. And, if we look back into art and literary history, there was no such thing as an MFA or BFA in fine arts or creative writing. These people, although they were privileged enough to be literate or have some access to books, literally went and did this entirely on their own. I work at a theatre compiling information about women playwrights throughout history, and something I’ve noticed reoccurring throughout my research is that many of these women started, or were well-known members, of intellectual clubs and literary salons. Despite the rampant sexism, they often found ins through their husbands, and then they would infiltrate the ranks of the boys to gain intel.
The MFA is a relatively new concept, especially since the popularity of writing MFAs didn’t explode until after 9/11 happened. Great human loss and tragedy, as we see throughout history, has us turning to art forms. And suddenly people wanted to get a master’s in it, thus over saturating the number of graduates, as well as the programs that were being offered.
This then creates an entirely new situation, one that is extremely gatekeeping in socioeconomic and racial terms. To be able to join this exclusive club of writers, you need to have money. An MFA at NYU costs you $40,000 a year in tuition alone and that’s not including the price of living in New York City. Scholarships are tough to come by in a program with limited seats and the world’s best writers, while the fully funded programs at Iowa, are known to skewer towards rich individuals. I remember discussing with many professors about how the IWW is largely white and upper class.
Why does this happen, you may ask? This is something I also noticed when I was coordinating free writing seminars for disadvantaged NYC students. A lot of writing programs involve paying a lot of money to receive instruction. A program for young writers, such as the Adroit Mentorship Program, is inaccessible to those who are unable to even pay for their basic necessities. And thus, at the end of the day, only those who can afford these classes are able to get ahead in the industry, creating better portfolios due to their access to workshops, or are able to hire editors for individual submission and manuscript consultations.
It’s a cycle, especially when an MFA doesn’t guarantee a job, or even a well-paying one. Academia is a tough job market these days, and as the number of graduate programs available go up, that means more graduates, which means more competition for jobs.
There are positives about the MFA. If you’ve never had a community, you automatically get one. You get workshops. You get readings. A teacher may mentor you. Those are some pretty sweet perks, I will admit. You also get two years to just sit around and write—what a dream. For me, however, I know I’d be stressed about money because living without a job and not a guaranteed stipend (depends on where you go, if we’re talking about BFA that’s some hot student loan debts coming on), and it would actually interfere with that writing time due to my anxiety.
My Story: Business Major Turned Emerging Poet
After my little stint at the writing high school, I hung up my writing hat and turned into a boring business major. Or, well, not so boring because I was able to go to fashion school and study fashion business and international trade. But, at the end of the day, my creativity wanted to be unleashed, and so I started seeking opportunities in the writing world. I applied to a fellowship and got it, being the youngest person in my cohort for that season to receive one. I was nineteen when I received the Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, which is the sole reason I think my career got going.
In college, I only took three writing classes, but managed to publish over 160 poems, stories, and journalism articles by the time I’m writing this in May 2021. I had no guidance on how to submit, how to do any of this. I didn’t use social media like a writer, and so I had to teach myself everything. But I was determined to get my work out there, and my hunger showed in every submission and position I applied for. I hustled, while still balancing my internships and coursework in business, and successfully paved a path for me in both the literary and business world.
You might be wondering what the point of this story may be, and it’s this: you don’t need a degree to be labeled a poet, an artist, or a photographer. Refine your skills on your own. Be hungry for opportunities to learn and be better at your craft. Get involved in the community that you’re passionate about, making great connections that will lead you to even greater opportunities. Find scholarships for courses online if you can’t afford them, apply to fellowships if they’re free. You literally having nothing to lose when you do things like these, and you have to want it really badly.
The Takeaways
You don’t have to major in writing or art-based fields. Honestly, I highly recommend not solely majoring in it and double majoring in something that will complement it. I never thought my business degrees would help me as a writer, but because I was in marketing, entrepreneurship, and business-based courses like finance and selling, I was capable of branding myself as a writer while being savvy about it. I knew how to run a business, and I am my own business with my writing.
There’s also an insane number of possibilities that I never even realized existed outside of a basic journalism or writing degree. I majored in trade, and now I can go into the global publishing industry with my degree, working with books and authors all around the world. You can go into arts administration or nonprofit management, helping nonprofits and organizations that are good for the world incorporate literary teachings to communities that need it but are unable to afford such an education.
At the end of the day, it’s about validation and community. The MFA/BFA is an expensive way to replicate the literary salons the writers who came before us had, and, unfortunately, it is up to you to decide if you want to pay big money for that. Personally, going into debt with no career guaranteed is an extremely risky move, nor do I want to feed into this cycle of “Oh, you have Iowa MFA in your bio? I’ll accept you just because of that.” It’s elitism and I do not support it.
