u/fancyhazmatsuit

Hi Reddit, this has been on my mind a lot recently and I’d appreciate any advice or stories.

I am in high school in the U.S. and I’m at the point where I need to start looking into colleges but frankly I’m a bit clueless. The only thing that I have as a guarantee is that I want to go into the arts. The last few years, after having drawn and sketched my whole life, I have gotten really big into oil painting and have done exceptionally well in all of the competitions I have participated in the last few years. Now, this year I have begun painting almost non-stop when I’m not doing school work to build up my portfolio. Despite this, I’ve been dealing with an incredible amount of imposter syndrome and so many questions have been circling around in my head.

Firstly, the arts don’t make a ton of money and with how our economy is looking I doubt commissioned oil paintings would keep me afloat very long. Secondly, the amount of times I’ve heard people say going to art school is a scam is crazy! So far what my parents have been endorsing and what I’ve been considering is going to a good liberal arts school and getting a major in fine arts and a minor in business or something reliable like that.

Thirdly, is I’ve also been considering going into slightly different careers in the arts but for some reason it feels so impossibly challenging to find out details about how to get into a career if not directly from someone who has the career. The thing that I have been considering is being a museum curator, specifically an art museum curator. From my brief research I know I would have to go down more of an art history route in college and build up a ton of credibility and experience but exact details elude me.

My biggest wish is just to set myself up in a position where I can do something creative and fulfilling to me. I know that what I do in my college years will be (maybe) important for whatever career I end up pursuing, and whatever I do now in high school will be important for getting into colleges, so I kinda just want to get everything right the first time around. Or at least as right as one can be when it comes to deciding what to do with the rest of one’s life as a teenager.

I’ll provide a few final details about myself just in case any of it is important. I am a very creative person; I paint a ton, I play a musical instrument for my school and have done very well with that, and I will occasionally do some writing and poetry; though, it’s not my strong suit as my grammar here might suggest (lol). I get pretty great grades and have an above 4.0 weighted gpa. I’m good at all of my core classes and am a few grades ahead in math but I’m not particularly passionate for any of my cores. I am not currently involved in any clubs and I haven’t done much volunteer work during high school due to a busier schedule, then some health issues, and now my painting schedule; however, I was involved in lots of stuff middle school and prior if colleges give a crap about that. I understand getting more involved in my community would likely be a good look for colleges.

Anyway, if anybody has any advice on what my priorities should be for looking appealing to schools, what schools (or experiences) would be the best to attend for the arts, what sort of majors or minors would be best, what a career in museum curation would look like, anything to do with the secret of life, love, and immense wealth, or anything else I may be overlooking.

Thanks in advance Reddit and I apologize if this was at all convoluted. I’m pretty confused.

I can’t stop staring at the sky. I am completely and utterly mesmerized. The sun glistens a pale shade of blue. I know that that color is not meant to be that of the sun, but I have been looking at it for so long that that is what it has become. I believe that what I am seeing is its true form. A radiating teal sphere glistening and shooting off rays of light like the crystal waters in the Caribbean. Oh, how I can smell it too! The salt, the breeze, the sand… but there is no sand. And there is no warmth that a sun would bring. But that is what I am looking at, completely and undeniably. It shines down blue from the white sky and white trees around me. It reflects off of the cold white ground and it reminds me of where I am. On a lake, of course, a frozen lake. One surrounded by the tallest white mountains and the tallest white trees, and that is why it is so cold. In fact, at times, it begins to rain. Heavy sheets of water sometimes pour over my face and run down my arms and legs into the cracks in the ice around me, and the water once again returns home to its place of still, cold, white solidity. The rain more often comes as a drip, though. It happens quite infrequently, but any time I feel myself beginning to drift asleep, it returns. If any human still existed here other than myself, I would try to resist it. There would then be a chance at copulation and a new generation to rebuild the world. Of course, then would come greater issues, but humanity has been tested to survive far worse. Like myself, for example. Little do I recall of how I arrived where I am, in this silent white forest on this silent white lake looking up at the white sky and beautiful blue sun, but somehow I did not die. I have been blessed, like few others before me, to be frozen here into the lake where I have achieved moksha. I am in a silent world of pure heaven and peace where I am sustained in life by what only could be described as the miracle of God itself. There is nothing in this world that I would deny. Which is why when the white tree far ahead of me contorts to cast a dark rectangular shadow, unlike any of the other trees, I do not fear. Whatever God brings me is for my benefit, and if that is death, then so be it. I will then be that of darkness, so full and consuming that I will not miss life and I will not miss the beautiful blue sun. I will only be thankful that I was so lucky as to experience it and that forever more I will be able to feel the warmth that in this lifetime I so lacked. So as the bear runs toward me from the shadow, I do not brace. I allow my muscles to melt and my eyelids to relax as I know that there will be no more rain now to awaken me. I do not feel death when it comes, I only notice as the light behind my eyelids fades.