A common misconception among many Nigerian students is that art courses are not valuable in the labor market.
As a result, art students are often perceived as having little to no chance of securing employment after graduation.
While this belief about art courses is largely inaccurate, it is important to acknowledge that the harsh realities of the Nigerian labor market do pose challenges for graduates from the arts.
Amid the widespread unemployment affecting many arts graduates, there are still a number of courses within the field that have consistently proven to be relevant and valuable in the Nigerian job market.
These courses have continued to attract employers and offer relatively stable career opportunities for graduates, serving as a safe haven in an otherwise uncertain landscape.
The best courses for art students are those that offer promising career paths. They are identified based on factors such as employment rates and their relevance in the global labor market.
Since only a few art courses truly stand out in terms of these metrics, we will narrow our list to the top 7—excluding those that do not meet the standard.
7 Best Courses for Art Students
1.Law
Law is the number one and the most prestigious course in the art field due to its relevance in the society within Nigeria and in the context of the global legal system.
Law as a course empowers and teaches the students who study the course various laws that bind individuals, institutions, and government.
Law was just a single course in Nigeria during the 90s, but in recent years universities across Nigeria have been offering different kinds of law as independent courses rather than law as a whole course.
Various law courses studied in Nigeria include private law, property law, international law, jurisprudence, Islamic law, and other fields of law.
The diversification of law into various courses contributed to the widespread nobility of the course and its relevance in the field.
Career opportunities available in the law field include lawyer, legal advisor, judge, corporate counsel, and human rights advocate.
2.Mass Communication
Mass Communication as an Art course teaches its students the way and processing of information through mass media and making sure this information reaches a large number of people or a population.
Second to law in the art field is the mass communication course in Nigeria; it is a heavily contested course for any JAMB aspirant, and many universities require a higher score for you to study the course.
We are in an age where massive loads of information are spread daily from news outlets to the social media field, and that is where mass communication comes in as a field to bridge that gap.
Major career opportunities available for mass communication graduates are journalist, public relations officer, broadcaster, content creator, media consultant, and social media account manager.
3. International Relations and History
International Relations is concerned with how government, institutions, and community interact with each other on an international scale and how interactions affect them.
International Relations is a course on its own, while history is a course on its own, but due to interconnected topics and philosophers, most Nigerian universities offer these two distinct courses as one course.
It is often noted among students who feel that history and international relations graduates are often short of jobs; this is false.
The high chance of every history and international relations student getting a job in a working society is as high as 80%.
While there are job opportunities for international relations and history students, it is advisable to learn as many foreign languages as possible alongside your course.
Job opportunities available for history and international relations students are diplomat, NGO officer, international civil servant, immigration officer, and foreign affairs analyst.
4.Psychology
Psychology is a field of art that deals with the study of behavior and mind in a scientific way in both humans and animals as a whole.
Psychology is usually termed a social science course but has found its way into art courses in recent years because of its interaction with the human environment.
Psychology is an important field, especially in an age where the human mind is overwhelmed and thus breaking down, which might affect the mental health of that particular individual and might even extend to its health being.
Psychology graduates are often known as psychologists, and various job opportunities for psychology graduates include clinical psychologist, school counselor, human resources specialist, and mental health advocate.
5.English and Literary Studies
English and Literary Studies may not be a professional course, but it is among the best-selling courses in the art field.
Basically, across Nigeria’s education sector, the English language has in recent years dominated the means of communicating to students in the classroom, and it has been used to set examinations and, in effect, used to answer the question.
Nigeria’s deficiency in the English language is shown in the last conducted WAEC, where many students failed the subject.
English language and literary studies graduates stand as some of the most in-demand teaching professors, aside from those in mathematics and calculating courses.
Job opportunities for English language & literary studies are not limited to the teaching profession only; others include editor, content writer, publisher, and communication specialist.
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6.Sociology
Sociology is the study of human social relationships and interactions among institutions in a community or society; it even extends to studying the processes that preserve and change human beings.
Sociology is a social field of study but can be studied by art students across various Nigerian universities.
Sociology as a course helps students address needs that arise as a result of human interaction and the effect that this interaction might have caused.
Sociology is now becoming an important course because the more the population grows, the higher the need for solutions to curb the effect from it.
Sociology graduates are open to various job opportunities, which include advice worker, housing manager/officer, policy officer, social researcher, and a lot more.
7.Linguistic
Linguistics is the field of art that deals with the study of language and investigation about the properties of a particular language and how it has evolved in recent years.
An important field in art is linguistics because it is tied directly to art; human civilization can’t be achieved without language in effect.
Language has helped shape society and community and helped build interaction.
Linguistics in recent years has conducted various research that has brought a sound contribution to the advancement of technology and modernization.
While many view linguistics as just a course that is focused on how the tongue and language operate, it has evolved so much in recent years that it now uses mathematics to solve some complex cases.
Job opportunities available for linguistics graduates include translator, lexicographer, speech therapist, and language instructor.
Conclusion
Only 7 made the list of the best courses for art students, not because there are not other courses but because they are actually being phased out or are not currently relevant to the Nigerian and global labor markets.
If you probably have other courses in mind that might have been your passion and are not included in this field, it is not an avenue not to take the course; in fact, make sure you study the course to the highest level to achieve possible success.
A.O. S is a Graduate of Economics from Adekunle Ajasin University,he has been in the blogging space for 4 years and his major aim is helping Nigerian students understand the Education system at all level