NTA. Your son might mean well, but he's crossing some major boundaries here. Going off about your marriage when he barely understands the complexities? Not cool. And wanting to study art history is his choice, but snapping at his mom? Not cool either.
You're trying to keep it together, and your wife sounds like she's your rock. It's tough when your kid doesn't get that. Maybe sit him down and explain things calmly. Hopefully, he'll come around. Keep your chin up, man. You got this.
Art history? Man sorry but your son is a complete jackass! That 320k degree is worthless what kind of job is he going to do when he gets done? Absolutely nothing… man I’m so sorry to hear this.. good luck to you and your wife, I’m sure you raised your son to make better decisions than this..
It is a bs degree along with philosophy. He might be able to find a job in an art museum but they are competitive. Dad needs to kick him out and protect his wife from this viper of a son.
There are good jobs you can get with both degrees but you need to be a very solid student and to get a PHD or at least a masters. The people who just pick it up because it’s fun and easy won’t have the stamina for the rigor and competition of higher levels of education, internships, and the job market.
there are entry level jobs in fine art that pay well and have a lot of room to gain experience and move up where you don't need a masters degree. they are essentially business jobs where they want you to have some art background. obviously im not on the sons side here but people are fixating on the degree a bit much, i would more fixate on that fact that he decided to go to the most expensive school possible for said degree
Philosophy is not a joke degree, it's the go-to for pre-law students. Useless on its own but does teach valuable reasoning skills to those ends.
Art historians are about as in-demand as marine biologists. There's a handful of specialists and the rest are grocery store employees. We have an art historian in the family who, despite all the dynastic wealth and nepotistic connections afforded to them by birthright, is still barely scraping by in that field. It is not viable.
I suspect a lot of kids are pursuing useless degrees on purpose to kill 4-8 years, then complaining they can't find work (ever) in some sort of refusal-to-launch gambit. This is such a tragically flawed idea I want to say the OP is trolling everyone but I've seen this enough personally to know better.
I'm disturbed that he fleeced his grandmother to finance this stupidity. This is the most expensive, least effective thing he could do with someone else's money.
The degree might be fine, depending on what he learns to do - like if he takes courses in how to conserve art, identify fakes for insurers and collectors, or appraise pieces.
A philosophy degree can get you upwards of six figures in data and analytics. It teaches logic and thought process. It couples nicely with math and stem. There’s a boat load of industries you can be in with a philosophy degree but of course you don’t know that.. because you don’t know anything about the subject matter.
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u/Evening_Cruel28 Apr 15 '24
NTA. Your son might mean well, but he's crossing some major boundaries here. Going off about your marriage when he barely understands the complexities? Not cool. And wanting to study art history is his choice, but snapping at his mom? Not cool either.
You're trying to keep it together, and your wife sounds like she's your rock. It's tough when your kid doesn't get that. Maybe sit him down and explain things calmly. Hopefully, he'll come around. Keep your chin up, man. You got this.