[elblanco]

I suppose. I didn't make the hierarchy, it just seemed to be informally observed. There were definitely a fair number of people in the technical fields that took art courses for an easy A, almost no artists ever attended a course on discrete circuit design, or took a course in algorithm evaluation.

[foldr]

Well, I guess it depends on how tough the art courses are. My point was just that becoming a good artist is as hard as becoming a good electronic engineer. But if the art courses aren't rigorous then I guess that fact isn't relevant.

[elblanco]

I'm not an artist, and I'm likely influenced by the perceptions (fair or not) of my alma mater. I have taken a few art courses for hobby and thought they were fun. I wasn't great, but probably nothing that practice and perseverance wouldn't overcome. But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard? Honest question, I really have no idea. To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice. But I'm sure that a B.A. in Fine Arts involves something more than an extended 4 year crafts session.

[foldr]

>But could you elaborate a bit on what might make an art major hard?

I'm kind of baffled by this question. It's very difficult to create good art. If it is necessary to create good art in order to get an art major, then getting an art major will be correspondingly difficult.

>To me it seems like mostly learning technique and practice practice practice.

You could say the same thing about learning a musical instrument. I guess it's true that with enough practice, pretty much anyone can learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of competence. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to become a good musician, or to reach a standard that's high enough for a music major.

Come to think of it, you could say the same thing about math (at least at the undergraduate level). Solving differential equations is largely about learning a certain set of techniques and practicing them.

[elblanco]

I don't think I said anything about being "good" at art. There are sadly a great many artists that aren't particularly good.

I don't know what the admission standards are to get into an undegrad art program, but at least at my alma mater, there are a great many pieces of junk littering the grounds that are apparently supposed to be showpiece works of the art students, apparently actually being "good" is not a prerequisite.

I'm just not sure what exactly is "hard" about getting an art degree, and I'm perfectly willing to say that's because of my own ignorance. Some of the art history classes might be toughish, perhaps learning specific techniques, or comparative art across cultures or something. But nothing more difficult than say, a technical writing class.

[foldr]

I think that it's hard to get an art degree because you need to be able to produce good art in order to get one.

Granted, you don't have to be very good, but then you don't have to be a very good physicist in order to get a physics degree.

>there are a great many pieces of junk littering the grounds that are apparently supposed to be showpiece works of the art students, apparently actually being "good" is not a prerequisite.

What if undergraduate work in math and physics were put on display? Would it necessarily be any more impressive? You don't expect undergraduates to be world-class physicists, and you can't really expect them to be world-class artists either.