While you might be wary of proclaiming an art major, even if you happen to have some aptitude for drawing, painting, sculpting, or even creating digital graphics, there are a number of reasons why you should at least consider adding art courses to your schedule during your time in college. Here are a few good reasons to take some art classes on your way to a degree and a career.

1. Meet a requirement. There are all kinds of educational requirements you’ll need to meet before you’re allowed to graduate and art classes may fill one or more of these requirements, depending on the school you go to and the major you’ve chosen. Even if your art course only fills an elective slot and it has nothing to do with your major, it could end up being a fun way to complete needed units.
2. Try something new. College is not just your path to a career – it’s an opportunity to figure out what you like and what you’re good at. You’ll have the chance to take all kinds of classes of your choosing, so if you find art classes alluring, you should definitely give them a try. If you don’t end up enjoying art classes or they’re more of a hobby than a profession, you’ve wasted nothing but a semester. And you never know – you could end up finding your true calling.
3. Contribute to your career path. Studying a number of different disciplines can end up helping you in whatever career path you choose, and proclivities in certain areas could contribute in unexpected ways, even if you go into an unrelated industry. Suppose you want a career in marketing. A background in art, or at least a basic understanding of composition, could help you to make graphic choices for advertising materials that are more conducive to making sales. And candidates who are adept in a number of disciplines are often more appealing to employers in a variety of fields.
4. Expand your network of connections. You never know when your connections can help you where your professional path is concerned. The friends you make in college could end up being important to your career (or vice versa) down the road, and there are all kinds of professions where knowing artists could prove valuable.
5. Expand your horizons. Perhaps the biggest benefit of art education is that it can help you to look at the world in an entirely new way. It can even change the way you think. Studies have shown that stimulating the brain with music and other artistic pursuits forces us to use portions of the brain that might be neglected if we focused on purely academic pursuits. And the more agile your mind is, the better opportunity you have to express yourself, interact with others, and make connections that allow you to see the world around you in new and exciting ways. Whether you enjoy art history, you like to paint or sculpt, or you’re a member of the contemporary ceramic studios association in your community, taking art classes in college can only help you to improve in all aspects of your life.