Will I be a Starving Artist?

Key Takeaways:

• An education in arts and humanities offers an opportunity to develop life skills, not just job-specific skills.
• Personal interests and strengths can contribute to a meaningful calling.
• Education can impact you personally rather than solely professionally.

What are you going to do with that degree?

My dear father, Pops, asked me this when I told him I was going to double major in theatre and communications. He was steeped in the sciences and loved, as much as any stoic Norwegian can express, his job at 3M.

“I have no idea,” I answered at the time.

But I continued, “What I do know is that if I’m going to spend most of my waking hours working, I want to enjoy the work.”

Looking back on my 19-year-old self, I can now see something I didn’t yet have language for: a quiet trust that God does not waste the way He has uniquely wired us. I knew where I felt misplaced (in science and math), and I knew where I felt at home (in theatre, creative arts, storytelling, and the study of communication). What I couldn’t yet see was how those instincts might become a calling.

My undergraduate experience did not prepare me for one specific job. Instead, it did something deeper; it formed me. It expanded my understanding of what meaningful work could be and equipped me with skills that have grown with me across every season of my life.

Through the arts and humanities, I began to better understand people, their motivations, their stories, their fears, and their hopes. I learned to listen not only to what is said, but to what is left unsaid. I paid attention. That kind of attentiveness is, at its core, a spiritual practice, one that reflects the way Christ sees and meets people with compassion and truth.

I developed the ability to build connections across disciplines and bring people together around shared ideas. I strived to communicate with clarity and care, to ask better questions, and to hold complexity without rushing to easy answers. These are not just professional skills; they are ways of engaging the world faithfully.

At the undergraduate level, an arts and humanities education offers something uniquely formative:

1. It teaches you how to communicate with clarity and conviction, using your voice in ways that can serve and influence others.

2. It cultivates creativity and imagination, reflecting the image of a creative God and opening doors to innovation in every field.

3. It deepens your empathy and cultural awareness, equipping you to love your neighbor well in a complex and diverse world.

4. It develops your capacity to adapt with humility and courage, trusting that God’s calling often unfolds over time rather than in a single, fixed path.

In a world that is constantly changing, this kind of formation matters. Technical skills may open a first door, but character, wisdom, and the ability to work with people sustain a lifetime of meaningful work.

For students, this means you are not confined to a single outcome. You are being prepared for a life of purpose.

For families, this means your student is not just choosing a major. They are being shaped into a thoughtful, capable, and faithful person in whatever field they enter.

An arts and humanities degree does not narrow your future. It widens it.

And along the way, it invites you to pay attention to the deeper question beneath “What will I do?” and  “Who is God calling me to become?”