Teens. After high school, then what? Choosing a career.

Marshall Mason is a very successful theatre director. He likes to work with playwrights on new plays and he is exceptionally good, working with actors. He helped to found the Off-Broadway Circle Rep Theatre. He has directed a number of plays on Broadway and has received several Obie awards. Currently he is teaching at Arizona State University. “I try to discover how to bring plays to life through collaboration with the actors' instincts.”

Advice about Choosing a Career
“Did you ever ask yourself what’s the difference between a job and a career? A job is a task you perform for pay. You are told what to do and how to do it. You don’t have to think a great deal, and in fact it can be almost mechanical. There can be good and bad jobs, but the work is generally dull and has little advancement.

“A career, on the other hand, is a road to an advanced position. You are given a task, but you decide how to best accomplish that task. As you become more proficient in your work, you are advanced to a more challenging task. A career requires creativity, thought, and the ability to work with a wide variety of people. You have to deal with change, be able to communicate your ideas, and forge solutions to problems. And as the world becomes smaller because of improved networks of communications and travel, you need to have an international perspective on your career because you may be in El Paso one day and in New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, or Berlin the next. You may have to deal with different cultures, languages, and economic systems.” Jobs and Careers in Liberal Arts, The University of Texas at El Paso. http://www.utep.edu/~libarts/lacareer.htm

The Top 10 Steps for Choosing a Career
http://www.topten.org/content/tt.AB6.htm

Ten very good ideas:

1. Begin with your values
2. Identify your skills and talents
3. Identify your preferences
4. Experiment
5. Become broadly literate
6. In your first job, opt for experience first, money second
7. Aim for a job in which you can be 110% committed
8. Build your lifestyle around your income, not your expectations
9. Invest five percent of your time, energy, and money into furthering your career
10. Be willing to change and adapt

Links with Information about Careers

• Links about careers in all the arts
• Links about careers in art plus links to schools
• Links about careers in dance plus links to schools
• Links about careers in music plus links to schools
• Links about careers in theatre plus links to schools
• Links to interviews with artists
• Links to biographies of artists
  

Teacher’s Guide

Students > Careers > Career Links

Links about Careers in all the Arts

Occupational Outlook Handbook
http://stats.bls.gov/oco/oco1002.htm

From the U.S. Department of Labor, this is the most thorough look at “Professional and related occupations” in the country. Each entry has:

1. Significant Points (percent self-employed, licensing requirements, degrees or training required, amount of competition for jobs, physical requirements, longevity in the field, need for business skills, etc.)
2. Nature of the Work
3. Working Conditions
4. Employment (number of jobs in the country)
5. Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement
6. Job Outlook (number of new jobs to expect)
7. Earnings (median annual earnings, middle 50%, lowest 10% and highest 10%)

The careers included:

• Architects, Landscape architects
• Artists and related workers (art directors; fine artists including painters, sculptors and illustrators; multi-media artists and animators)
• Designers
• Actors, producers, and directors
• Dancers and choreographers
• Musicians, singers and related workers
• Photographers
• Television, video, and motion picture camera operators and editors
• Education (K-12 arts educators are not specifically discussed)

Essential reading.

A music teacher at work.

Vocational Information Center
http://www.khake.com/index.html

• Educators – nothing about arts educators, but there is a link to certification requirements for each state.
• Graphic Arts and Printing Career Guide – animator, bindery worker, broadcast animator, multimedia, cartoonist, computer animator, communication arts, creative director, graphic artist and designer, offset press operator, paper industry careers, photographer, print finisher, public relations specialist
• Performing Arts Career Guide – actor, director, producer, broadcast media careers, musician and singer, careers in the music industry, music production, musical instrument repairer – tuner, choreographer, dance therapist, dancer, new media, rigger, stage technician
• Photography and Film – broadcast media careers, camera operators, photographer, editorial photographer, film and video maker, film and video camera operators, film editor, grip, motion picture photographer, photofinishers, photographic equipment technicians, film processors, photojournalists, pre-press occupations, producer, public relations specialist, television production, television photojournalism