Anyone who reads this please know I'm not knocking accounting - just trying to suggest a solution for something that would be artist-career proactive IF your heart is to be an artist.

good advise, marketing is quite interesting and require alot of creativity

Amen to that. Slight tangent: All that is necessary to be successful as an artist is to keep telling everyone how good you are ... what you actually do matters not. But I would advise hiring a marketing or PR company to do the dirty work for you. No one loves a big mouth.

tat sounds like me, except i chose accountancy w/o really knowing wat im getting myself into except gd job prospects, but not my cup of tea. Ended up scoring well in subjects like Marketing instead...and i still wish to be a performer i guess

How about more conservative arts subjects like English or Art history? The present day salary of an art auctioneer or the prestige of a lecturer might be a worthy point of rebuttal if your folks choose to conduct a debate of sorts.

Jeszlene - I think both being an art auctioneer and being a lecturer are extemely specialized careers though. These would be the dream careers of which there are not many slots available which would make them poor "back up career" options. The idea here is that our imaginary student wants to be a fashion designer or actor or musician or something which already is a job which has only a few slots and they need a "back up career" to satisfy the parents or other pressures - so I feel like that career should be one of which there is and always will be many jobs available AND directly ties into being something which would help them expand their career. (If English was acceptable to the presures, then that seems like a fine choice as well for artists OUTSIDE OF THE US or UK and that's a good point, because this could definitely help them expand their work to the world wide audience. For someone who already is in the US, English would not be so good as the careers are specialized.)

Sorica7... really? I don't see that in Los Angeles. Well, i'm sure some people will live "poorly" even as an accountant though, right? Sort of depends on how you approach anything.... this thought is really though for the person who is an artist first. They're not going into a marketing career - they're learning marketing to market themselves as an artist.

Sorica7... really? I don't see that in Los Angeles. Well, i'm sure some people will live "poorly" even as an accountant though, right? Sort of depends on how you approach anything.... this thought is really though for the person who is an artist first. They're not going into a marketing career - they're learning marketing to market themselves as an artist.

true... how about just a teacher instead of lecturer? Actually many of us teach in Singapore, but the value of educators might be different outside Asia. English as in literature, not linguistics. Job options include copywriting, publications, education, etc