Should you get a University Jewelry Degree

Jewelry Discussion
41 
We keep coming back to this - what I believe to be a complete
misunderstanding of the purpose of college/university. It is NOT
to prepare you to walk right into a job -

If the colleges and universities would honestly make this known up
front, that statement might fly, but all too often it is offered
after several years and many thousands of dollars have been
committed. Besides, who is going to take the bait if you are that
straightforward about it? My experience is that the schools talk up
what does happen and ignore what they are not delivering that someone
might reasonably expect to be part of the program or the future of
graduates. At the same time art schools culturally indoctrinate
students not to expect or seek bench work jobs for graduates. When I
was a student 30 years ago there was a lot of disdain in education
for the mainstream jewelry industry and business. Maybe it is better
now, but I hear echos of the same attitudes.

Not true that ALL curriculum are like this. Many trades and skills
taught have very high placement rates in their fields and usually
brag it up when recruiting students. A friend of mine was a professor
of concrete technology and had most of his students placed by the
first semester of their senior years, because employers knew that he
had taught them what they needed to know. My daughter just graduated
with a degree in engineering. This not a good year for graduates, but
last year’s graduates from her school (Bucknell) had nearly 100%
placement.

The sad commentary is that successful jewelers are very likely to
have learned their craft informally. Either self taught or through
on-the-job training. This includes many who went to art school, which
begs the question, “why isn’t art school better at teaching the
basics?”

I have sent 3 of my children to college. I have 3 more still in
public school. The two youngest want to be jewelry craftsmen, so this
is a very important issue for me. I would gladly send them to art
school if I was convinced it was in their best interest, but I am not
convinced.

Stephen Walker

http://www.celtarts.com

42

I had a thought that I would like to add to the discussion. If your
intention is to open your own brick and mortar business then perhaps
a university degree combined with a few years at the bench may come
in handy when trying to get a small business loan. Of course getting
a small business loan in this economy is nearly impossible according
to the talking heads on cable news but anything to make your loan
application stand out could be helpful.

Rick Copeland
Silversmith and Lapidary Artisan

43

Mr Donivan,

Gold is valuable because of it's properties - the value comes from
that, not vice versa

There is no long list of reasons why a Faberge egg could not be
manufactured out of a metal like brass, and I assure you it would
last longer than 125 years. I have never said, nor do I teach, that
all metals are interchangeable. They are not. Gold is valuable
because there is so little of it. The properties are merely a happy
coincidence. And there is no such thing as “It can only be made in
gold” and " The things I make in gold can be made in no other metal."
I do not need to put my thinking cap on to realise that. This closes
my comments on this subject.

Cheers, Hans Meevis
http://www.meevis.com

44 
The point of a degree is to broaden and deepen your knowledge, not
just in one field, but across the range of human knowledge.

Even though I believe a University should be the last resort of
anyone serious about becoming a jeweler of any merit, Beth’s
impassioned little essay about the value of a university education
paints the big picture about as well as I’ve heard. Education is
good for you, get some, then get some more… Thank you, Beth.

Since there was a bit lately about how metals are interchangeable -
only a university metals program will give you that - instead of
simply scoffing at the idea I thought I’d actually say why it’s
scoffable, since Orchid is a bout education.

The other day someone showed me the ring her mother had made in a
jewelry class - a silver band with a piece of copper overlaid on top
in a certain shape. Very nice, very nicely done for a student. It is
a fact that she could have substituted brass, bronze, gold, silver
and a whole list of things for the copper. That’s the “metals as
colored construction paper” school of design, which is well suited
to an adult education (“play”) school.

But ---- Let’s take a real job, one of jewelry engineering. First
off, we need to understand that this is a real ring, it’s going to
be sold for a lot of money, and we don’t ever want to see it again,
meaning it must be a quality product. Yes, we ~could~ make it out of
toothpicks, but this isn’t jewelry 101.

A ballerina is a passe’ design, now, but it’s a great example of
engineering, still. It’s a ring of baguettes around a center of some
shape, and it undulates like a ballerina’s tutu, thus the name.
(Google if necessary…) We’ll make it in platinum as a product
line, so we’ll make a model and mold it. We’ll make the model in
sterling silver, which is a shank with wires and a separate top
that’s pierced for the baguettes. It will be assembled after casting

  • it’s easy to mold that way and near impossible to mold well as a
    single piece.

10 point baguettes (say) and prong wires of around 3/4mm after
casting. The struts between the baguettes can be something like the
thickness of manila file folder paper, because it’s platinum. Yes,
the job can be done easily in sterling, and often is.

What you can’t do is take the wax out of that mold and actually make
the ring in silver - not if you expect ot sell it and forget it. The
struts aren’t heavy enough by half, the prongs will be bendable with
a fingernail, the stones will pop out in weeks. Not to mention you
can’t hold your prepolish in soldering and it will tarnish like mad
underneath. For the ringto be made in silver requires doubling every
aspect of it, roughly the differences in tensile strength and the
like between silver and platinum. IOW, the ring needs to be
engineered for the metal it’s to be made in. For obvious reasons
(green fingers, rotten undergalleries) brass is simply out of the
question. There are workarounds for all things (plating), but those
are workarounds and it’s never ~the same~ ring. It’s easy to say
things like the question here when you are working with giant slabs
of metal and easy technique - it’s quite different when you are
pushing the limits of the structure and designing with that
structure in mind, and making real pieces of jewelry.

I appreciate that it sounds good - “All I need to do is switch
metals, and I’m working in gold…” That quickly vanishes when your
problem is to design a gold setting and a platinum setting of just
the right weight for a 2 carat stone… Engineering…

45 
We keep coming back to this - what I believe to be a complete
misunderstanding of the purpose of college/university. It is NOT
to prepare you to walk right into a job - and if you go in thinking
that, you are most likely to be rudely awakened when you graduate!
It doesn't matter whether you are studying metals or biology or
history - the basic degree is not to make you job ready."

Looking back on my misspent life of 47 years, it would seem to me
that the expectation that a degree is supposed to make you job ready
exists for a reason, but not in the way people would normally
suppose.

It is simply this: a 4 year university degree is a rite of passage
that every employer expect the applicant to have accomplished on his
own time and dime. It actually doesn’t matter to the employer in the
slightest whether the degree actually confers skills or not. It
certainly doesn’t matter to the employer in the least as to whether
the degree helps at all to produce a well-rounded human being.

The employer actually considers your education to be essentially
worthless otherwise. He’s going to train you himself in the skills he
wants you to know, or have his other employees do it for him.

The only value that a 4 year university degree has to an employer is
proof that you have the necessary discipline to finish what you start
and play by this rules. He’ll also expect you to have participated in
team sports, because that shows the potential for loyalty to his
ideals rather than yours. And, oh yes, if you happen to have a
connection to one of his friends, that’s another factor that
separates you from the rest of the herd.

Essentially, we have a social norm in the US stating that a 4 year
university degree is one of the prerequisites for any salaried
position.

My very traditional (Jewish) family had the attitude that it was
best to have a safe

job rather than go for something “artsy” or “useless” like jewelry
making, rather it was essential for all male offspring to enter a
profession that would allow for marrying while still in your late
20’s. Self-fulfillment was highly discouraged, because fulfilling the
Commandments was considered a higher priority.

Law and medical degrees were best and for a long while the only
options. Other completely safe but very boring fields soon arose as
acceptable choices, such as engineering, math, physics, accounting,
business administration, and the military (4 year service academy
leading to officer, my mother would not allow me to simply enlist
because in her opinion, “enlisted men live like pigs.”)

It is for that reason that I came under enormous pressure from my
family to be a doctor.

I had to explain to my father, "I’m choosing engineering because I
would find it a lot

easier to reboot a machine than it would to reboot a human being."
They grudgingly

agreed to allow me to be an engineer, because engineering (back in
the 70’s) had roughly the same level of respect in my family as
accounting.

So… I followed the rules… I got the credentials… I had a 15
year career… I had two marriages. I lived for others for many long
years uncountable rather than living for myself because I was raised
to believe it was the right thing to do.

And now the world is turned upside down. Being selfish is considered
a good thing.

Good deeds are more often punished than rewarded. And people who cut
corners consider ethical and virtuous people who play by the rules to
be chumps.

And so the college degree has become worthless. Everything I had
invested my life toward has become worthless. There are days when I
simply wish God would take me.

46 
Even though I believe a University should be the last resort of
anyone serious about becoming a jeweler of any merit, Beth's
impassioned little essay about the value of a university education
paints the big picture about as well as I've heard. Education is
good for you, get some, then get some more....

You are most welcome John! Although I will continue to disagree with
you on the “last resort” part. But simply because I think you are
seeing the university education as an end in itself, and I see it as
a step on a path.

I hope to never stop learning, no matter how old I get. There will
always be things I don’t know that I want to know. How many litters
do bobcats have? How long does it take them to reach adulthood? Not
irrelevant, as I saw what I think was a juvenile bobcat out the back
window of my new workshop space yesterday!

I also think that because you want to be a jeweler doesn’t mean you
get the university degree in art - you might be better off getting
it in business, or marketing, or computers, or the history of
decorative arts - and then going to Revere or New Approach, or
wherever and getting your jewelry skills there…

As I said - its a step, not the end of the road.

Beth Wicker
Three Cats and a Dog Design Studio

47 
Beth's impassioned little essay about the value of a university
education paints the big picture about as well as I've heard.

Not to nitpick, but I found nothing “little” in Beth’s essay. It was
well considered and well written.

The field of jewelry can and is approached on many different levels
and, professionally, through many different portals. From so-called
“art jewelry” to the classics. And there are, to my way of thinking,
many different roads to education. As I get older I find myself less
inclined to believe in absolutes.

Andy

48

Stephen,

I am a still a student at the Dutch goldsmiths school. not a
universtity though, but hard labour and practice.

It would be interesting if you share the length of your course, what
you are expected to accomplish, and what your prospects are for
employment when you are finished.

Richard Hart G.G.
Denver, Co.

49 
I found this refreshing and also very promising as an alternative
to what is being taught in many university "Art" programs."

And just when I’d given up hope in university art programs. I’m
relieved that there are still some institutions with integrity left.
As someone who left the traditional jewelry world to complete a
master’s degree I was shocked at what was being taught, or rather,
what was not being taught in mine and similar schools. From what
I’ve seen the teachers themselves, being products of similar p=
rograms don’t have the education and background to properly teach
metalsmithig and jewelry.

The problem I see in the hiring of new faculty is that they seem to
be hired based on what they have published or how many shows they’ve
had, in how many magazines they’ve been included, rather than the
quality of their work and ability to teach. The degree of
craftsmanship is secondary to the degree of showmanship. How
schooled the applicant is in the art of self promotion seems to
figure prominently in hiring decisions.

Another trend I’ve seen is the “one trick pony” wherein the teacher
has onething for which they’re known and get hired based on that bit
of celebrity. Is it any wonder that their student’s work is a pale
imitation? Politics and the good old boy (or girl) network work
counter to the best interest ofthe students.

I’d personally be embarrassed to have my students present the work
I’ve seen coming out of many MFA programs.

If it says “master” I would think they meant master.

Students I’ve spoken to from these programs have no idea of how to
make basic tools or understand the rudiments of metalsmithing. I had
lost hope in academia being able to impart the knowledge necessary
for the continuation of our craft, art, and tradition and am happy to
hear that it’s not the case everywhere. That there are still places
that provide a “functional education in preparation for a
professional career in jewelry”.

Thanks for the post David,
J.M. Richardson

50

Andrew,

Everyone at some time reaches a point where they find themselves in
the middle of their life on a dark path where they cannot see the
way forward. (I think Dante said this.) I have been there. Many of my
friends have been there. Take inventory. Find the pieces of your
life that are worth saving. Pick up the pieces and work to start the
fire of life again. 47 is very young. Make a list of things that make
you happy and read it every day. List the pieces of your life that
you want to save and re-arrange them in at least 20 different ways.

There will be a solution. Find it yourself or speak with a counselor.

Good luck.

51 
why a Faberge egg could not be manufactured out of a metal like
brass,

It can’t be enameled, is enough…

52 
As I get older I find myself less inclined to believe in
absolutes.

No real reason to single out Andy’s quote, beyond that it’s true…

The point… University degree, apprenticeships on another
thread. The point is to get yourself closer to the top of the food
chain. I see these threads as less of a discussion of art and more
one of career. And the more anybody knows about life, perception,
nature and a great deal more, the better they will be, and the better
artist they will be.

Most people are average - that’s what the word means. Average
ability, a verage intellegence, average artistic ability. I don’t
see Jean Schlumberger (GRHS) on Orchid… With all due respect to
the venerable craft of bead stringing, anybody can put a bead on a
string. Anybody can be taught how to silver solder in a couple of
hours at most. And if you look at some of the sites like Etsy, much
of the work is just the same - and the real point is that they are
all competing with each other. The answer to that is to rise higher
up the pyramid, whether it be through design or technique or both -
both is best. At a student’s level, there are millions of people
doing the same work (individual styles, yes). If not tens of
millions. At my level it’s more like tens of thousands, at our
British Master’s level it’s more like thousands. If they want it,
they have to go to you…

The real thing is to understand that the world is big - the jewelry
world is big. Knowing what the typical jewelry school graduate knows
is a tiny amount of stuff, comparatively speaking. It can get them
by - sometimes (often) not… That mountain never stops going
upwards…

53

I believe that who you are as a person effects the materials you work
with.

Getting a ‘liberal’ education influences in a profound way and a
advanced degree even more.

Then go live in a foreign country for at least a year and become a
citizen of the world.

Then decide if you want to make jewelry. The vocational part is easy.
It’s the first part that’s difficult. And, in today’s world very
expensive.

If you’re content to do work that’s found at a generic jewelry store
you can shortcut almost everything.

KPK

54

Thanks Michael for your wonderful assessment of George Brown College
in Toronto. The 3 year Jewellery Arts program is not for the faint
of heart but pays off in spades of knowledge. If anyone wants more
info. contact me directly. Before my sojourn into jewellery I was a
high school math and science teacher and hold a B. Sc.(Hons) and B.
Ed. I’ve had a career change and with that came a return for more
schooling (something I love). I am also a 2nd generation jeweller in
a family of 5 other jewellers. We know from collective experience
the value of both a ‘formal’ education at a place as reputable as GB
(my cousins also attended 20 years ago) together with the time that
must be put in at the bench. Having not just one, but both
experiences gives me a more rounded understanding of the whole
business from the metallurical to the current trends, from CAD to
casting and finally the networking that goes on in school from
instructors to guest speakers a\nd even the wholesalers who come by
the school to sell to us.That being= said, I want to be clear that I
am in no way saying one is better than the other!! I have met many,
many jewellers in my life and I am sure not all were schooled
formally. I could not tell by the beautiful work they did! But I do
wonder if their path was harder and longer. Not better or worse. I
get to learn from everyone else’s previous mistakes and not have to
repeat them, I take comfort in that.

Bonnie

55 
I lived for others for many long years uncountable rather than
living for myself because I was raised to believe it was the right
thing to do. And now the world is turned upside down. Everything I
had invested my life toward has become worthless. There are days
when I simply wish God would take me.

Sounds more like midlife crisis. Take two sports cars and call me in
the morning. Or take two girlfriends and don’t call me in the
morning. Your choice.

Really though, kidding aside, maybe its time to live YOUR life, as
you perceive it. Tough to figure out when you feel like you’ve just
been whacked over the head with a 2x4. I still got some splinters.

Time’s getting short, you better get moving.

This pep talk is brought to you from the other side.

56

Here’s a quote from this article:

http://tinyurl.com/yko5y3u

Another widespread myth holds that most Americans need to go to
college in the future. In reality, most of the fastest-growing
jobs, including those in healthcare, do not require a four-year
bachelor's degree. According to the Council of Economic Advisers:
"The categories with some education required beyond high school
are growing faster than those not requiring post-secondary
schooling. The growth is not solely among occupations requiring
bachelor's degrees; occupations that require only an associate's
degree or a post-secondary vocational award are actually
projected to grow slightly faster than occupations requiring a
bachelor's degree or more." The appropriate public policy
response is not necessarily to send more Americans to expensive
four- year colleges, particularly if that means crippling burdens
of personal debt in the form of student loans. We need to expand
the vocational training provided by the community college system.

Elaine

57 
It can't be enameled, is enough..

In the interest of posting that is correct.

where Mr Brepohl in the book ‘The Theory and Practice of
Goldsmithing’, says on page 376, Quote: “Brass alloys with less than
5% zinc make excellent surfaces for enameling.”

And some pictures of antique enameled brass,

http://tinyurl.com/ybtgj35
http://tinyurl.com/yb75rcl
http://tinyurl.com/yajro4v

I find this faintly embarassing.
http://www.meevis.com

58 
The problem I see in the hiring of new faculty is that they seem
to be hired based on what they have published or how many shows
they've had, in how many magazines they've been included, rather
than the quality of their work and ability to teach. The degree of
craftsmanship is secondary to the degree of showmanship. How
schooled the applicant is in the art of self promotion seems to
figure prominently in hiring decisions.

This is at least some of the point of last years long thread on
Metalsmith magazine and SNAG. Incestuousness among academics and all.

Daniel Culver

59 
I'd personally be embarrassed to have my students present the work
I've seen coming out of many MFA programs.

I’m sure some here think I’m various unmentionable things for some
of my thoughts on these threads - that’s OK. I’m a real nice man, in
person. = One thing I won’t take credit for on these threads is the
reaming some have given University’s Metals… Man!!

The difference… I can’t speak for all school programs, University
or otherwise, but I can speak for the several I have seen, attended
and consulted in. Mostly what they do, after some fundamentals, is
say something like, “Make a piece using overlays…” and the
students just do as they will. There’s something to be said for that

  • letting creative juices flow and all that. There’s something else
    that can be said about that, which is, “If they were jewelry
    designers they wouldn’t be paying you to teach them, eh?”

The other school is what you’ll get in the job market - I know some
schools, too. That is, “Make this piece, do this work, I don’t care
if you like it.” Or something like that. That method gives more
creativity than you might think, at times. Nothing like a month of
repair work to let you follow in other people’s footsteps… What
it really does is compel you to do things you don’t want to do, but
need to know anyway. The graver is a good example - it doesn’t matter
if you want to be an engraver, the other function is more like a
chisel - cleaning blind corners, cutting all sorts of things, making
lines. That means you still need to know how to fix up a graver for
work… And there are all manner of little tasks and chores that are
difficult to write here, but are the fundamental building blocks of
jewelry making. Those are things most people will avoid doing, if
given the choice, but they still need to be learned to be any good
with metal in any way.

Not a judgement, just the contrast…

60 
Etsy, much of the work is just the same - and the real point is
that they are all competing with each other. The answer to that is
to rise higher up the pyramid, whether it be through design or
technique or both - both is best.

Agree.

Years ago I worked for a first rate retailer that specialized in all
“The Names”. I had to up the pyramid a lot just to stay relevant in
that environment. Boss gave me total free reign on my custom jobs
though. One day he picked up a piece I had just finished. After he
louped it over he asks me what are “we” charging for this? I tell
him. He gets this certain gleam in his eye and says, “Be the
best…and be expensive”.

After the thousands of words in this and a few other related
threads, college, self taught, art, commerce blah blah blah it boils
down to those few words…Be The Best.

And I’ll tell you this…nothing makes you rise to the challenge like
hunger.