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Whether one is college bound, seeking a new career, or simply committed to continued education, there are numerous avenues of discovery easily available in the arts and humanities. The applied arts can include everything from fashion design and marketing to graphic and multimedia design to culinary training. The typical liberal arts agenda includes science and math, social science, the fine arts, and the humanities, including literature, history, philosophy and religion, and languages.

Beyond design, two of the fastest-growing areas of study are Communication, in which one learns to convey ideas in many mediums, and the Culinary Arts, in which one learns to prepare food and beverages using the techniques of professional chefs and bakers.

These programs of study can prepare one for a productive career or can enhance one's appreciation of the finer things of life, like aesthetics, ideas and gastronomy.

Arts & Design Degrees
Courses in the arts and design can be found in virtually all colleges, both on campuses and online, and can lead to numerous degrees in a number of disciplines. The degree requirements vary from field to field and from school to school.

Degree Programs and Careers in Arts & Design
Numerous career opportunities are available in the field of arts and design. Below are a few of the most popular. For detailed information on specific careers, degree requirements and salary ranges, simply choose a category:

Fashion Design
Fashion design is the applied art of constructing clothing, garments and accessories. This field not only includes design, but also pattern making, sewing, material texture, color schemes and tailoring, among other concerns.

Culinary Arts
A study of the culinary arts concentrates on the techniques and terminology of preparing food and beverages in a professional and aesthetic manner. Cooking, baking, and hospitality management all cluster under this tasty domain.

Applied Arts & Design
Design is the interface of art and functionality. Whether one is designing fashion, furniture, graphics, multimedia, or a new product, design is the collection of techniques that convert ideas, feelings and information into visual symbols engineered to influence the way we perceive the world. Applied Arts & Design studies take students beyond the basics of disciplines like fashion design or graphics by combining creative exercises in fashion design, interior design or graphics creation with practical marketing information to build the foundation of a successful career.

Communication
In this far-reaching discipline, one learns to communicate ideas effectively, whether they consist of information, impressions, identity or attitudes, using words, images, symbols or sound. Communication covers a wide range of interpersonal, mass media and multimedia tools, advertising and marketing, techniques and materials, with numerous niche specialties to match one's talents and interests.

Graphic Design
Graphic design involves the integration of art, graphics, text, and other visual elements to communicate an idea. The arrangement of these elements is used in such media as advertising, corporate identity creation, publishing, brochures and catalogs, signs, letterheads, posters, packaging, and web sites.

Liberal Arts
The goal of the original medieval European universities was to provide scholars with a well-rounded education through exposure to the essential and fundamental ideas of civilization and society, and a study of the liberal arts and humanities was the core of this curriculum. A background in the liberal arts encourages students to develop both an appreciation of culture and the ability to reason as an individual, rather than training one in a specific field or skill.

Financial Outlook for Careers in Arts & Design
Nearly two-thirds of all working artists are self-employed, which makes competition for work, both full-time and freelance, highly competitive. Earnings of independent artists can vary enormously, and have no fixed scale, average, or standard. Prospects for applied artists, such as technical illustrators, graphic designers, game designers and developers, art directors and corporate communication experts are expected to be about average during the current decade, but competition will be stiff. Consequently, wages and salaries can vary widely depending on one's training and skills, location, specialty, and employment status. The average salary of a full-time graphic designer in 2004, for instance, was about $38,000, with a range running from a low of under $32,000 to a high of over $43,000.

Culinary arts is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts abundant opportunities for chefs, cooks and other food preparation personnel during the next decade. Most of these jobs will be at the low end of the pay scale, however, and competition for higher-level positions such as head chef becomes more pronounced as one rises in the industry and up the salary scale.