I liked having the opportunity to take courses from a huge area of academic areas- but it hurt me when I was looking for a Graduate program and work. I can speak about differences in Freudian and Jungian theories on the origins, significance and meanings of dreams, debate about the philosophy of aesthetics, as in the case of Nietzsche’s arguments on the dichotomy of Apollonian versus the Dionysian, and tell you that the inosphere consists of the exosphere and thermosphere and rests on top of the mesosphere, and discuss how I used a 12 inch ruler and the Pythagorean theorem to calculate how all of my furniture would fit into the back of the smallest (and therefore cheapest) moving truck, and I can design, code and upload an entire website with content that passes the W3C web standards overnight.
But yet, MFA programs want students who studied nothing but art- and usually only one medium of art- as an undergrad, not someone who understands the how history and culture can influence/manipulate their choices and how the cycle of art history is circling back for the first time in hundreds of years- the world is changing art- instead of art changing the world; And the workforce wants experts in one area, not someone who’s broad education field gave them the ability to problem solve, multi-task, quick research and filtration of research, all working within a tight time frame. She hit the nail on the head when she days, “We persist… in being sidelined by the idea of The Expert as being the only one capable of coming up with the answers, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”