Career Ready
Careers of Tomorrow Are Forged Here
If you're an alumni of the Hartford Art School, we'd love to celebrate your post-grad accomplishments. If you've gone onto graduate school, began your career, or participated in volunteer work, we want to hear about it!
The ability to think differently, offer up creative ideas, synthesize solutions, and infuse one's artistry are a few examples of the benefits to an education in the arts.
Our programs develop intentional and transferable skills in students that allow them to connect, collaborate, and succeed in the art economy. Our focus on workforce readiness is integrated in the curriculum and the opportunities that they provide. From multidisciplinary course options, to internship and networking opportunities with our partnerships with industry-leading companies, organizations, and our vast alumni network, Hartford Art School students are prepared to take the next steps in professional goals and career explorations.
Bethany Levesque, '19,Unlike any of the other schools I applied to, the University of Hartford was an art school within a larger university, which opened up a lot of opportunities outside of art...I also feel the education I received gave me a strong base, not only with my artistic skills, but the ability to creatively problem solve. That's huge no matter what you decide to do."
We begin making a case for the value of studying art as viable career preparation when our students begin their studies. We have documented how Fortune 500 companies were hiring artists to work side by side with engineers and how the MFA was being considered the new MBA by many companies. We talk about how art students learn innovation, problem solving, and other transferable job skills. We showed you profiles of our alumni who are successful in their own business, in design firms, in the fashion industry, the museum world, and as independent artists.
It’s all true, but I want to highlight another aspect of a creative career and a creative life.
On a recent Sunday, I was listening to Dr. Atul Gawande on the local NPR station. He is a medical doctor and author of several books. He quoted poet Annie Dillard saying “how we spend our days is how we spend our lives,” and he asked his listeners to consider “What a good day looks like?” He was relating how living and doing things that matter lead to health and well-being. He said that “well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive.”
I know from my own experience in photography that the motivation to express oneself, to communicate experiences in such a way that others may know who we are, is a tool for achieving psychological integration and emotional well-being.
Author and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra observed that “the single most important factor for health and well-being is that we make something creative from our existence.” He continues to state that “the arts play an important role in our ability to think, problem solve and remember.”
Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, said in her recent book Braving the Wilderness: the Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, “We want to be part of something larger than us, it has to be real, true belonging only happens when we present our authentic imperfect selves to the world.”
Parents probably know from a few late-night phone calls that their son or daughter has been presenting their authentic and imperfect selves to their faculty and classmates for four years now. They have had to brave uncertainty and criticism during weekly verbal critiques of their work and, I contend, they have learned how to trust others and themselves in the process.
Author Toni Morrison gave a commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College in 1988; her conclusion is as true today as then: “the function of [contemporary] education must be to produce humane human beings.”
So, what does a good day look like to you? Celebrating your commencement with family and friends is a “pretty good day” but you can also look forward to sharing your authentic self with the world through your art. You are part of something that doesn’t require you to change who you are–it only requires you to be who you are.