Hello again everyone!
So I was invited to do a careers panel for the University of Mary Washington. The panel was tonight, Monday the 30th at 4:00 pm in one of my old art history lecture halls. The panel consisted of me (2003 graduate)and three other girls who had graduated in 2004. Basically the panel is put on once a year for students in the art and art history department at UMW. The panel always consists of graduated students from UMW who have found work with thier BA in studio art degrees. Of course, I was asked to come back because the amount of students interested in graduate school, so they thought i'd be able to talk a little bit about how I got into the UARTS program and all the troubles I had getting into graduate school in the first place.
The panel was great! I'd say about twenty students showed up and we talked for about an hour and fourty five minutes. One presenter was a highschool art teacher, one was the productions coordinator for George Washington University and the other was a gallery manager for a gallery in Richmond VA.
It was great to talk with everyone because we all went in such diverse directions with our degrees. It turns out that all the presenters have been considering going back to school to get their MFA's.
I guess why I'm writing this all to you in the first place was that having to explain to the soon-to-be graduates of UMW about the difficulties getting into an art graduate program in the first place, and then explaining a little bit about my work and the work ethic I had to develop, I guess it all energized me a bit to work even harder this semester. Because the truth is that I tried for two years to get into a grad program, and now that I have, I'm sure as hell not going to waste it.
1 comment:
One of the most intersting things I saw as an undergrad was a panel comprised of artists who had graduate five, ten and fifteen years ago from the school. They were at such radically different places in their careers, and it became evident how hard one must work to stay involved in the studio as one listened. On the few occasions I've been asked to talk about my work, I tend to overprepare and it makes me very excited about the work I do - I feel very engaged and alive. It would be great if in ProPrac everyone had to deliver a lecture, or - failing that - if students could organize their own intradepartment lecture series for summer. As Deb's post suggests, it could be a valuable and energizing experience.
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