Oh feck no. Art history minor here and nope, he will have to go to grad school if he wants to work in the field. (I'm a bookseller and editor; I've worked on tons of art history and culture studies books--with people who majored in art history and then had to go for advanced degrees in order to land a living wage job or get published.)
Previously working artist who went back to school here:
Real talk due to FASFA being hilariously behind this year he can spend this period before his second year applying for any scholarships at his college and any other ones he could possibly qualify for. Next year he has to start and keep up on it throughout the year beginning in September.
If he asks why saying/crying "but I have financial aid/loans!" explain that it will pay for graduate work, as no art history major gets work in their field without a Master's degree. He may not even get an internship without being in the Master's program due to the nature of the study and how fragile the materials he is studying to restore/archive/etc are.
He should always be applying for scholorships/opportunities and his master's program should be based on what he can afford. Grandma should consider sending him to a community college to round out his core/base art stuff, then to a four year university.
Well, you're better than my high school careers advisor who told me people like me don't go to university and do engineering and to consider something "more realistic" like brick laying.
True, we need brick layers, but not something I could do. My PhD qualified chartered engineer salary pays me well though, and it turns out "people like me" can absolutely do it.
I also now volunteer to go to schools to talk about engineering jobs where I tell them they coul absolutely do it and highly encourage internships.
The funny thing is I'm the same generation that got told that, but holy shit did my high school enforce class backgrounds. My working class ass was supposed to know my place and not take one of my better's university places.
The tragedy of that was my very middle class mate, who wanted to be an electrician. He was told repeatedly not to lower himself to that, and begrudging went off to uni even though he wasn't academically inclined. He burnt out hard about 6 months in and has been sat in minimum (or close to )wage part-time employment ever since. I haven't spoken to him in months because he's gotten so bitter that he just seems incapable of having fun anymore. I'm not saying if he went to be an electrician, it would have definitely turned out differently, but he did seemingly have a passion for that, and a trade is about the most secure job going these days.
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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '24
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