Three cigarettes in an ashtray.

I should be studying, but I thought I had to blog about this.

While on the phone with Mom a couple of nights ago, I was told that Blob and family have been talking amongst one another, that I definitely won't be able to get a decent job in future. And even if I do get a job in the first place, I probably am not going to make it to the top of the company anyway. Why is that so, you ask me with curious eyes. Because I am doing an arts degree. A meagre, worth-almost-nothing arts degree at the University of Melbourne.

So here it comes again. That same old question that almost every bloody adult loves to ask me at CNY gatherings and the like, when I tell them I am doing ARTS:

"Hmm... so what are you going to do in future ah?" (because saying "I am doing arts" doesn't directly explain my future career option, as opposed to saying "I am doing medicine" or "I am doing accounting". Note also that people don't normally go "waaaaah" at someone doing an arts degree, like they normally do when they know you are studying law or medicine.)

I might have gone a little off the topic but my point in writing this is that, I think there are some very weird misconceptions attached to doing arts degrees (arts meaning history, philosophy, political science, geography, theatre, languages etc). Maybe not so much in Australia but definitely in SG. The arts faculty is a dumping ground for students who cannot make it, arts degrees can only land you in a teaching job, arts degrees won't give you a decent pay, arts degrees are very general, blah blah blah.

While I agree to a certain extent that... okay, so we arts students aren't doing anything as impressive as law or medicine or accounting people - you know, the big money, the glam/prestige and all that sort of thing... but at the very least, I believe in what I do, and I love what I do. I hope I can say the same for all my friends in the arts faculty too, that we chose this path and we are happy with what we chose, even though we still may not have a clue as to what we'll do in future. "Third World Development and Japanese? Where the hell are you going to end up with these two majors?" I've asked myself this question so many times. It used to bother me that I had no definite answer for my own question, but as time passed I've decided to let it go and concentrate on getting the degree first. And graduating, of course. With honours, hopefully.

Back to Blob and family. I was actually more amused than pissed to know that they'd actually been discussing my future career opportunities among themselves. The father (who is also my uncle, unfortunately) clearly has a very skewed perception of what it means to be successful in life. Simply put, studying law/medicine/accounting/science/information technology will get you somewhere, but not arts. Definitely not. It is however very ironic that they (of all people) could have such a discussion about me, because their own son was kicked out of uni for failing the same two subjects TWICE. But I digress.

Non-arts people may not know this, but the arts field is this vast, and it allows you to explore so many things in this world we live in. The arts may be broad and general, but at the same time it gives you opportunities to analyse and see things from so many perspectives (here comes the essay-writing bit), and I dare say more so than any other course at university, because nothing in the arts is ever absolute. It just depends on how well you present your argument. Oh, I could go on forever, but let's stop here.

Snobs like Blob and family should stop looking down on the arts, and despising people like me who do arts degrees. Because I chose this path, and unlike your suffering son I am happy with what I am doing. And while I may not know my math and science very well, nor do I know which low-paying job I am going to end up in the future, I do know that I am able to write a decent kick-ass essay, complete with twenty references to substantiate my argument. Can you?

"The only comfort you can take from eating at a Denny's is that you know for sure that all over America, everyone else at a Denny's is just as unhappy as you are." - Drew Carey.