Ugh, MFA questions!
I have been going back and forth about getting mine. Since I just started a new, fulltime job on Monday, that has been placed on permanent hold.
I had a very interesting talk with a professor about getting my MFA. He's the head of a department in Colorado, and took the time to speak with me extensively about my expectations, etc, even though I would not be enrolling in his school. Basicly he said that an MFA will really only do you good if you want to teach. He also said that the likelyhood of getting a teaching position is akin to getting on to a major league team. Actually, tougher (there are more positions open in baseball 😱 ). There is one "online" school that is always looking for instructors, which is one of the schools I had considered. Let's just say that a certain school in Savannah does not have a great reputation in the academic world.
Universities are VERY political. The policy at many Colorado schools is they won't higher someone who got *any* degree from them! These same institutions frown on highering someone who got their master's from the same school as your BFA. They want *diversity*. The university system is VERY competitive.
I had wanted to go back and study art after 20 years. I was told that the Vermont online program is the best distance learning option, and I may revisit this option after I'm setting in my new design job.
Sorry if this post sounds kind of negative. Just passing along info that I've gathered....Cheers!
my wife just read this post and she was told the same thing about a masters, in the realm of art
i also had a friend who had a plan A and plan B approach to this from his 20s..first he became a great rock and roll guitarist and got his bfa in music composition and then worked his tail off in the music industry for the next decade trying to land that elusive record contract
when that didn't happen, he went back to graduate school in his mid 30s and then got his mfa and then his phd and for quite some time now, he has been the guitar professor as the junior college which actually does not pay bad in california and is like winning the lottery compared to being an unsigned band in hollywood or san francisco
he's a little older than me and in his 50s and he has no regrets...he basically got to have his cake and eat it, too (many years of veteran rock and roll club experience in big cities and getting a graduate education in music and getting to teach others)
my other friend, who is my age in his 40s, wanted to be a rock and roll musician but he went to college for eight years straight and finished his graduate education, but every time i talk with him, he seems to yearn about what he could have done as a rock and roll musician...at least he has his degrees in music, but it's interesting to see the void in his life by never having done the rock music lifestyle thing while in his 20s
moral of the story...heck i don't know, but go out and do your art in the big world and get post bachelor's training, too (not necesarily a degree, either since there are oppotunities to work in art workshops with legends)
what i would like to do, if i can find the time, is to do one of those with david wilcox, or similar artist, at a songwriter's camp for adults
