Posted in the dunk tank because I expect to be dunked on.
So I got in a discussion with a friend that someone they knew was hardworking because they were doing a degree in music theory on a PhD track while also juggling multiple jobs. I was impressed with all the jobs this person was doing, but I said that music theory as a degree is absurd and most liberal arts degrees are related to professional bullshitting (re: writing useless essays about a specific quality of something) than they are about something socially useful so I didn't find that aspect impressive at all. In my eyes, the socially useful thing about a music theory degree would be applying this idea to make good music, or to teach others about it. Notably, music theory is not about engineering a stage for good acoustics, nor is it about building instruments. It leads to nothing tangible, but rather is a sort of meta-analysis of music as a whole. Its possible to receive a music theory degree while making bad music. And bad music and good music is wholly subjective, its possible to put on a very musically skillful display and have no one like it, or not be interesting enough that a good swath of people enjoy it.
Compare this to, say, an architecture degree. There can be artistic expression in architecture, but its incredibly important to put people through a degree program for rigor to avoid architectural deficiencies which can kill people. The point here is that any sort of rigor drilled into someone in a music theory PhD pipeline has questionable benefits, and is likely a waste of time and labor. However, it is possible that it would be useful to have music theory certifications that are relatively quick, cheap, and potentially free to get to help teach musicians music theory to improve their art, maximizing social benefits. And I think that is something that can be applied to a lot of liberal art degrees.
Maybe this is colored by the way my grandma taught me about Socialist Czechoslovakia. There were benefits for artists, but people could only get free/subsidized degrees if they went to do something very practical such as architecture, engineering, science, and so on. Which is why so much socialist art is baked into something practical, like housing.
I got a doctorate in guitar of all things. I dreamed I would be a college guitar teacher because my mentor was and he meant a lot to me at a young age. I came to my last year and realized I didn't want to be a college teacher, and instead o graduated and taught 3rd to 8th grade guitar. I enjoyed it for a few years but Covid really affected my perception of education. I then went hard on releasing music and now make a living from Spotify and YouTube. It's easy for my to be pessimistic about my education and the time and money poured into it, but I think I learned some valuable skills.
Its good youre making a living doing art! And I think the skills can be important, but the length of the degrees and more importantly the cost is what makes me feel it is a capitalist innovation. If you could just distill the useful skills into a certificate that took 6months-1year to finish, wouldn't it be better because then you could focus solely on art? Obviously, some degrees this would be dangerous to do, but with some degrees I feel it makes perfect sense.
100000% agree. It was an artificial hurdle I just went through for a certification for a job that I eventually realized wasn't for me.