Ask Ryan and Hannah: How to Help Your Child Pursue Illustration Without an Art Degree (DF#186)

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:00]:
It doesn't matter if you're passionate about it. There are plenty of people that are passionate about teaching. There are plenty of people that are passionate about working with kids. And then how many teachers do you know that are absolutely miserable because they don't get paid enough money? Aloha, folks. Welcome back to Degree Free. Today, we are reaching into our mailbag, and Hannah and I are going to answer 1 of the questions that was submitted by 1 of you folks, our viewers, our listeners. Today, this question is from Gianna. If you want your question answered as well, you can go to ask.degreefree.co and you can go ahead and ask us your question there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:38]:
I am going to read a very, very long question. So stick with me here, everybody. But I just want to give the entire context of the question. It's not really a question. There's like multiple questions in here. We are going to break it down step by step and give you our thoughts. And So once again, this is from Gianna. Gianna, thank you so much for asking us your question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:57]:
Here we go. Hi there. I have been listening to you guys for about six months now and you make a ton of sense. I purchased your workbooks with the intention of helping my 17 year old daughter to find a different way to plot her future, but I'm getting a lot of push back from her because she is so thoroughly brainwashed. She's so convinced that she needs to go to an art school and get an illustration job, that she's not open minded about any other possibilities. She's incredibly talented, and I'm not necessarily against her going to some sort of higher education. But in my opinion, traditional four year colleges are a scam because they make you take, AKA pay for, which already, Gianna, love the attitude, a bunch of prerequisite that you aren't interested in, which aren't relevant to your course of study, just to fill up the four years and true art schools that she would prefer are a fortune. This is on all caps.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:46]:
You're talking a minimum of 160,000 to 300,000, which is absolutely insane. I went to state schools and got my AA and BA for less than $30. Granted that was 28 years ago, but still I was able to work during breaks to pay for all of my living expenses. And my dad was able to pay for the tuition without going into debt. We are a debt free family, in the parenthesis, other than our house and our car. And I refuse to let my children go into the kind of soul crushing debt that's equivalent to a mortgage just for a degree. It's ridiculous. So here's my question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:19]:
How do I get my daughter to understand that there are other ways to get the life she wants? I'm going to insist that she work on your book over the holiday break because she's been resisting even looking at it, but I don't want it to be something that I'm forcing her to do. I want her to open her mind to other possibilities for her future, but I'm afraid that she's too limited in her thinking to actually consider any other path than art school. I know that you are incredibly busy, and I know that you have a career planning business where you charge your clients for your help in plotting their future. So I want you to understand that I'm not asking you to work for me for free or anything. I'm simply reaching out as a desperate mama to see if you have any advice for me at all. I appreciate your help and any advice that you are willing to share. Thank you for your time. Gianna, yes, we do have a career planning business.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:02]:
No worries. We got you. Here we go. We are going to give you our thoughts here. Yes. There's only 1 question here, if that's your thing right. So here's my question. How do I get my daughter to understand that there are other ways to get the life she wants? That is the question, but there are really like different problems in here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:17]:
And we are going to go over each 1 of those step by step and give you our thoughts on how we can tackle this problem together and how we can get your daughter to maybe listen a little bit more or at least just expand her horizons and possibly expand the different options that are out there for her. We've identified 4 problems here that we want to talk about. The first is not going over needs and I'll get to what that means in a second. The second is you already bought the degree free way, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. But she doesn't want to do it. So we're going to address that. Then there is the daughter's convinced that she needs an art degree to be an illustrator, the payment options. And then there is the last 1, which is we think that your daughter doesn't see another way or is scared to try another way.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:02]:
So let's go through those 1 by 1. Hey there. I hope that you're loving this episode of the degree free podcast. We spend a ton of time every week creating this content for you. So my only ask is you take a quick second to leave a review or thumbs up on whatever platform you're on. It's 1 of the best and easiest ways that you can support this podcast, and this simple action can help bring more people into the degree free community. At degree free, we wanna help as many people as we can thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. Your review will be a step in that direction.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:31]:
If you could do this small favor right now, pause this and leave a review. It would truly mean the world to us. Thank you. And back to the show. The very beginning of this, and we have done this on pretty much every Q and A that we've done so far is going back all the way to the beginning. And we've done done this pretty much on every one of these Q and A's, and it is foundational to what we do. And it's foundational to what you should be doing with your young adult and figuring out what they need for their life. That is the base of everything.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:02]:
It is great that she wants to be an illustrator. It's great that she wants to be an artist. That's fantastic. Did she think about what she needs in her life? Did she think about how she wants her life to look? And did she picture herself five years from now, ten years from now and what that looks like, and then figure out with the different jobs that are going to help her get to that goal. And if she did, did illustrator make it onto that list? Did it fulfill those things? So that is the very, very first part of it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:33]:
Now I can hear too. A lot of people go, well, of course she did because that's what she wants to be in the future. But what you have to do is help her roll back this probably very rosy picture. She has of like her quiet sketching studio, where she drinks her coffee and her tea and just draws and studio, where she drinks her coffee and her tea and just draws in a room all day by herself and listens to her own music. There's nothing wrong with that vision of the future, except she's already down the track with that. And she's already chosen industry slash job type first, which Ryan and I talk about that in the degree free way. We talk about the danger of doing that at this age. It's really dangerous to do that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:05]:
I was actually just on someone else's podcast. We were talking about the subject and I talked about the fact that a lot of creatives, specifically 17, 18 year olds, there is a big difference between interest and passion. Passion, I believe at this age is action based. So when you say your child is passionate about something, if your child is not actively doing that thing, then they are not passionate about it. They are interested in it. So if your child is passionate about being an illustrator, but is not trying to get their work published or trying to make a business out of it, or trying to give it to other people or show it to other people, your child is not passionate about that thing. Your child is interested and has a hobby doing that thing. It is not the same as being passionate.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:42]:
When you see a young adult who is passionate about, especially creatives, they're passionate about something, they are actively doing it. And it sounds to me, your daughter is probably has a small portfolio that she privately keeps and she draws or she doodles and she does these things. Maybe she does it at school. That does not count in our class. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actively taking the time to do this in her own time and then actively trying to do something with it. It is very dangerous to allow young people to take on bankruptcy exempt student debt, to pursue teenage interests, not teenage passions. These are very different things.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:13]:
I disagree with the gatekeeping of the definition of passion. The only reason why we would define it is because passion and interest, 1 of those 2, it's a fork in the road And it's okay for them to go down their passion, but it's not okay to go down their interest, which you and I really don't believe that. Because we don't believe that, we shouldn't gatekeep passion and interest. It doesn't matter. Does it fit her needs? That's the only thing that matters. It It comes up to 4 things and we go over the in the degree freeway. And, Gianna, you already have it. So it's just a matter of cracking it open and going through this with her, which we'll get to in the second point.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:44]:
It's just income, schedule, work environment, location. That's it. And finally, we put it in there as a danger zone is industry and type of work. The number 1 thing when we get asked questions like this is they always start with industry or type of work, just like how this question does. The number 1 thing, and mostly at this age is going to be income.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:03]:
That's not to say that if your child is passionate about something at this age, that means that the job that they're trying to pursue, even if it is something they're passionate about and they've actually taken action on it is the correct thing. It still has to come to the top of their needs. What I'm saying, and I'll tie this back in later, and I'm gonna talk about how if they do have a passion that they have been exercising and it doesn't meet their needs, they can still build that out as a career and then have a fail safe. But especially at the beginning when they are this young, I have seen cases and you've seen this too, where young people will use that. It's my passion. It's my passion to strong on their parents into ignoring their needs and into pressuring them into co signing loans that they should not be co signing. And it's a real problem. That passion word is super loaded.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:42]:
I agree with what you're saying. My argument to you is that by gatekeeping the definition and differentiating passion and interest, the way that you're doing, you're giving more strength to passion. Because if you're saying that as long as your child can go through these checkpoints of passion, that they've done it for money, that is more than just interest basically. And then all the checkpoints that you gave, then they have a stronger argument for their passion without having to go through the needs checkpoint. Those are the only ones that matter. It doesn't matter if you're passionate about it. There are plenty of people that are passionate about teaching. There are plenty of people that are passionate about working with kids.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:14]:
And then how many teachers do you know that are absolutely miserable because they don't get paid enough money?

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:19]:
Yeah. A ton. That's why I'm clarifying and saying there is a way to use those passions and for parents to encourage their children to pursue learning in their passions without having that be their main career. And we'll talk about this later in the episode, because I think this is really important and it happens all the time because her daughter's already down the tracks here, way too far down the tracks, as we talked about. So bring it back to needs, figure out what she needs. Income, schedule, location, and work environment. Those are the big 4. And I know this is hard and this is going to go into problem too, but she doesn't want to do it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:45]:
Gianna, the good thing for you is that you already have the tool belt or the tool bag, and it's fully loaded the degree free way. And it's there for you. The next problem as exactly as you said, Hannah was that, well, she doesn't want to do it, which is a tough thing to work through. I'll be honest right up front. If she doesn't want to do it, if she's not willing to put in the effort to go through every single section, the job limit inventory, the vocational creativity, the needs versus wants, versus wants the degree free 3, the legal requirement breakdown. If she's not willing to go through the workbook and put in the effort, it's going to be trash in trash out because it's going to be garbage in garbage out. She won't put in the effort. She's gonna give false answers.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:25]:
And if she knows where the puck is going, especially when she gets to the needs versus wants section of the book, which is the two first exercises, which is a job limit inventory and the vocational creativity, those are really just to get you warmed up to kinda illustrate, pun intended, to illustrate to her and to you the limit of their vocational creativity. Because as we say in the book, the jobs that any person knows about is the menu that they can pick from. Because if you don't know the job exists, you will never be able to get that job. You can only get jobs that you know exist. That is 100% fact. Even if you fall into a role and be like, oh, why don't you do this? Some lighting on this set. Somebody has to first tell you that, Hey, get over here and then, okay, what do you want me to do? And it's like, you're going to light the set. Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:10]:
Got it. Now, you know, that job exists. Now you can go do the job. It's absolutely fact. The first two are really to just illustrate the limitations that we're dealing with here and to illustrate that, Hey, we might have a problem here. And some people do really, really well, but no matter how well you do, even for me, I mean, I did vocational creativity and I'm pretty vocationally creative myself, especially now given how many years you and I have been at this and you are as well. But I can always learn more careers. I'm always on the lookout to learn more careers.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:37]:
Who knows how long this thing is gonna last. Right? We might need to go back in.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:40]:
We're gonna have to go into the drawing board and go, oh, no. We can't be educational designers anymore. What can we be?

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:45]:
Yeah. Exactly. I think for everybody, you can always improve on that. So those are the first two exercises. Once you get to the meat and potatoes, which is the needs versus wants, if she starts to see what's happening, because we lay it out in the very beginning, she's going to answer questions differently so that the illustrator, so that the artist path can rise to the top. To convince her to do it in an objective way is very, very tough. I

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:08]:
think the only advice I have for that, actually, if you're going to try to do it in stealth mode and she won't look through the book is to casually ask her the questions in the book, not with the book there and do it over days so that she doesn't know that's what you're doing. Ask her like, Oh, you know, if you could live anywhere, where would you live? I just have her talk. What's your dream house look like? Just ask her a fun question. This could take a month and doing it slowly can help too, but just slowly drip these questions out and get her real answers before she's trying to filter it. So So that illustrator would go, Oh, it's fine. I'll live in a studio apartment. I'll live in a $500 a month studio apartment forever for fifteen years. If that does rise to the top and that's real, then great.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:42]:
Awesome. And this is not to say that illustrators cannot be a profitable career and stuff like that, but you have to think this stuff through objectively first. We don't go at it from illustrator. Now what? That's just not the way that it works. That's how people end up in a lot of student loan debt.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:53]:
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment there. The only thing, if they absolutely don't want to do it, and let's say there are options where you can say, Hey, if you want my help at all in the next phase of your life, then do this. Then you must tell me these things. And while that is effective, once again, we're going to still run into the, is she going to be objective about the things that she's saying on the needs versus wants thing? I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying about sneaking it in. We designed the degree free way to be done in a weekend, right? Friday night, Saturday, pretty much all day. It takes a lot of research. And then Sunday,

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:25]:
if they're cooperative,

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:26]:
if they're not cooperative, you got to

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:27]:
ask the questions 1 at a time slowly.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:29]:
The best suggestion that I have there is Gianna. You read the book, see where we are going with our activities and the job limit inventory is useful. I think it's going to be very difficult to have her list the amount of jobs that she knows. It's difficult to bring that up in regular conversation and just have her really rattle it. Hey,

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:47]:
how many jobs do you know exactly? Where did you get that idea? I will say though, and this is just years of our experience talking. I have a sneaking suspicion and Gian because you wrote in, there are some assumptions I'm going to make. Kids in high school, if they have the slightest ounce of artistic talent and they don't directly fall into some STEM related field are pushed into art. Oh, you're artsy. How do I know that? I got into a chartered art school for illustration. And this happens from elementary school. The slightest bit more artistic talent than the average kid. They will say, oh, you're artistic.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:19]:
You're an artist. And that becomes their identity. So it's very likely that this has probably been a thing for a minute too. And she just doesn't know how many jobs are out there, especially how many art related jobs are out there as well. And this is a huge problem because illustrator is 1 that I see come up a lot when there's a creative who has no idea what jobs are out there. It happens often. You'll get graphic designer is another 1. It's like, if you're okay with art on the computer and you've seen that at school, people just, oh, wow.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:43]:
And it's not to say there's not going to be elements of that present in their job at the end, once you're objective. But first you have to go from needs before you get to picking jobs by interest or by passion. That's how we do that much later. And so I suspect she doesn't know that many jobs.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:55]:
The rest of it, you absolutely can do stealth, especially the most important part of it, which is the needs versus wants section of it. That you can do very sneakily, as you were saying, just make sure that you take notes and then you you could do the research together. Be like, look, at the end of the day, you will have to spring it on her and just be like, look, this is what you said you wanted. And does this career path really make sense for you? Here are other career options that might fit this better. I know that's a concern of yours because you said it right here. I want her to open her mind to other possibilities for her future. It's really getting those needs. That is the number 1 thing that we need to do here is figure out the least amount of income that she needs to make.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:33]:
And then figure out what sort of work environment she wants to be in and what sort of schedule fits the type of life she wants to live.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:38]:
And then once you get all of those sneakily, you can do it together or you can do it by yourself and present to her, say, Hey, these other options are out there that fit your needs much better than this. And they don't require a college degree. Although illustrator doesn't get require a college degree of which we'll get into in a second.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:57]:
Yeah. The last thing here too, I'll make a point here. This 1 might be a little bit more on the controversial side, but the authoritative approach to this is telling her I will not fill out the FAFSA. I will not sign it. I will not pay any of the college application fees if you are trying to move ahead with that until you complete this with me. This is part of the process. It is not negotiable. I will not move forward and help you with these things at all.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:16]:
Well, that's what I said. I gave that as an option earlier and I said it can work. It's just whether or not she's going to be truthful in the process after that is the problem. And I guess the caveat could be,

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:26]:
you have to do this well, you have to be real about this. If we're going to move forward at all in any way, otherwise this process ends here and you're going to do this all yourself.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:34]:
So, Gianna, I hope that we address your concerns there. Moving on to the third problem that we've seen in this, which is daughter is convinced she needs an art degree to be an illustrator. So I know that you wanted her to open up her mind to other possibilities out there. Not really sure what that means or whether or not you just don't want her to go into art. So it's very difficult to open her mind to other possibilities if we haven't got the needs down. So for the rest of this, we're going to go down this illustrator path here because that's what we're talking about. If you completely don't want her to be an illustrator or anything like that, that's where the first two things that we talked about comes into play, figuring out the needs, figuring out the wants and then going through the workbook and finding all the jobs that fit her needs and wants. For the rest of this, we're going to assume that opening up her mind to other possibilities for her future is more directed towards the cost of college and the cost of the education that she's associating with this career.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:26]:
So basically my thoughts on this is that you, Gianna, you already know she doesn't need a degree to Other than telling her what you've already done, you can't convince her otherwise. The only thing you can do is support her in her learning journey with alternative options. So help her look for art lessons from an actual professional, not somebody who is a professor at an art college, because they were not successful enough of an artist to be 1 on their own and find someone who's a local professional painter illustrator to actually give her lessons. Offer to fund that. What this might do is flip the dynamic as well, which shows that you're supporting her furthering her education in this thing that interests her. I actually have an example of this again, because this is the similar to my personal experience, but my mom actually paid for me to take illustrations, illustration lessons with a local artist who had designed the state quarter a few years prior. And this is a really good way to think about too, who could train your child locally. There's people that have done this in order to get in really good shape.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:21]:
So if you want to be able to pay for expertise that you couldn't otherwise afford, so you can't afford the gold medal rowing coach to coach your child this year, but you could afford to take the silver medalist or the bronze medalist from five years ago and pay them a little bit to teach your child how to be really, really good at that. And so that's what you're looking for. You're looking for a professional artist who had a little bit of notoriety a few years back in something really niche. And this could be somebody who'd won the postage stamp competition or somebody that designs a stakeholder or somebody who's a big local artist where you live. And even if you live in a small town, they are present, they're there. And this is true for all different forms of art. So pottery, painting, illustration, stained glass, like all kinds of esoteric things. And that is how you find it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:03]:
A lot of them either already teach a little bit privately or they teach small group classes. Another thing you can do is she's 17. So help her look for an entry level job at a local publisher or a newspaper or a gallery or a small graphic design company. And local is really good because it'll help her form real connections with the people who are there and give her a sense of what the actual work looks like. And then I also have another resource that I'm a big fan of, but for kids who are interested in illustration, there's absolutely no reason to go to art school. School of Motion exists. This is an amazing resource where illustrators from all kinds of massive illustration companies, especially for game design, which is a really big use case for illustrators these days. They teach 3 d character animation, rigging, all kinds of things that are really important to illustration, no matter what she wants to do with it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:46]:
And showing her that support of her interest may take the edge off of her desire to do it as a career right now, going to college. And it may allow her to explore it in a way that's a little bit safer and lower risk so that she's not so stubborn about going to a $300,000 art school.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:03]:
At the end of the day with all of these art related fields, your portfolio matters more than anything. Your portfolio of work and the body of work that you've already done is what matters. Your college degree doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you went to school. It doesn't matter how much you paid for your degree. It matters the work that you've already done and showing that you've already done it. The more she can do it in a paid capacity, the better instead of getting paid for their work and then having a paid portfolio is the best that can happen. Behind that is all of the other lessons that you could do, free resources, paid resources, lessons, the things that you were talking about.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:38]:
At the end of the day, the portfolio is a portfolio, but the reason why the paid portfolio is better is because it's going to show the other person that they're entirely de risk. Somebody else has taken up the risk first to employ this person in some capacity. Some person has already commissioned this person to do whatever the job is, to do whatever the role is. And I am not the first person taking the risk. So you de risk the situation completely because when you show them, oh, this is the stuff that I've done in school. I'm actually thinking about a friend of mine who went to school for graphic design and still to this day is not a graphic designer. He went to university. He went to college to be a graphic design major, and he is a graphic design major and he still has never gotten paid work as a graphic designer.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:24]:
He does a little bit of freelance work here and there, but he's never had a company.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:28]:
Like a W2 job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:29]:
Yes. Or even a, like a solid contracting role on a repeat basis so that he can build his skills. And I think a lot of it has to do 1, his portfolio isn't good enough. He's not getting out there enough. He's not applying enough, all of that stuff. But I think a lot of it has to do with nobody wants to take that first step. If there's a way that she can get that first step taken care of at such a young age. Perfect.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:49]:
That de risks the situation so much was on the resume in their portfolio that I did this paid gig to do X, Y, and Z. The portfolio is a thing that matters the most. The portfolio and the experience and paid is better than free lessons, things of that nature. When dealing with portfolios as well, the thing that matters the most, yes, the quality of work absolutely matters, but really quality is good. Recent quality is better. What have you done lately? That's what I want to know. Talking about my friend that's a graphic design major. He graduated three, four years ago from a graphic design school.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:22]:
He can show you all of the graphic design work that he did four years ago. And you'd be like, okay, so when did you graduate? You graduated in whatever 2020. These projects are from 2020. What have you done recently? And they look amazing. I haven't really done anything recently. And that's okay. Well, we're not going to take the risk of that. De risking it by having recent work and de risking it even more by having recent paid work.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:44]:
Those are the things that really matter in the arts industry. And I've told the story before about my friend that went to film school. He went to school to get a film degree. He came out and he wanted to be a video editor. So he got into the editing room with a company. There's a room of like 3 or 4 of them. And the other guys there didn't have a college degree and they had just been doing video editing for three to four years while he was in college. Exactly.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:10]:
As Gianna has pointed out taking classes that he didn't need.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:14]:
To fill time to justify the cost of film school. Anecdotally too, I went to high school and finished high school in Savannah, Georgia. And a huge presence that Gianna, I'm sure you're referring to when I saw this hundred and 60 to 300 k price tag, 1 of the first schools that came to mind was SCAD. Savannah College of Art Design is up there with like Moody Institute, ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously expensive. 1 of my dearest friends in the world actually graduated from SCAD, and she had something in a technical a technical artistic field, which was industrial design, which is actually 1 of the highest paying, like quote unquote majors, not something like illustration, something with a hard, like mathematical technical design skill on the other side. Still now does not use that. When I've spoken to her about this, she's like, I did not need to go there to do any of the things that I do. None.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:58]:
0. She even worked in product design and now she works in tourism and digital marketing and did not need to pay for that in order to do all the things that she can do now. She's very vehement about that. And it's something that I just wanna use to just firm up Gianna that it's absolutely not going to be worth whatever you're going to pay in that price tag is scatter or Moody Institute money, for sure. The core thing is to build a portfolio. And now this leads into our next problem because your daughter seems like to me, her just not being open minded sounds like what she's decided to do is just tell you that that's where she's going to go to school. She's going to go to 1 of these art schools. And that to me tells me that she's under the impression that you're just going to pay for it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:34]:
This is what it seems to me. She thinks you're going to pay as long as she just sticks to the same career. And if she just keeps insisting on 1 of those art schools that you'll just pay for 1.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:41]:
So look at it. I don't know if she thinks that she'll pay for it. I just think that she, at least from what I read, the soul crushing debt, I don't want her to go into soul crushing debt, that type of stuff. I at least think that we can make the assumption that it is expected for her to cosign.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:55]:
The daughter expects she's going to do it anyway. And at that age, she can't take out those loans herself. So she must just assume that you're going to co sign the loans. And I'm not saying you even told her that it's probably school giving her that impression. But I think the thing that you're going to have to do is going to be very hard and it's going to cause definitely some friction that said, I think that a bit of friction now is far better than $160,000 worth of bankruptcy exempt student loans later. So the solution, if she is just going to not change her mind because she believes she can just keep moving on ahead and you're going to co sign whatever loans at whatever art school she decides to go to is refuse to pay. Do not cosign those loans under any circumstances. Based on what you have disclosed, that may seem it's gonna cause a giant rift.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:35]:
However, you are correct about the ROI. You are right about the risk, and you are right that she does not need it. Even if she decides that this is the career path she's going to pursue and ignore other needs, you are correct. She does not need a college degree to do this. And the most loving thing that you can do is also the hardest thing, which is tell her no.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:52]:
1 of the things that I've said behind closed doors a lot. I mean, you and I have had many, many off camera conversations about co signing the loans and about the colleges now roping in the parents and how it is in college marketing, but just in society in general, if you don't, co sign the loans, if you don't sign in general, if you don't, co sign the loans, if you don't sign off on it, you're a bad parent. I've thought a lot about it. I don't have crazy formed opinions on it and concrete advice yet, but it's something that I've, that has been mulling around in my head for a really long time. And it's something that I think that once I formed up a little bit more opinions and maybe some a little bit more actionable advice, we'll make a full episode on. But I completely agree with you here. At the end of the day with the co signing of loans, it is your money. Account.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:35]:
Your current work, your future work that is guaranteeing their life and guaranteeing their loans. And if you're not comfortable with the ROI on it or if you're just not comfortable with anything of it, I don't think it makes you a bad parent for saying no. I don't agree with this.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:49]:
This. I think that it makes you a good parent. It's much harder to tell them no, at this point.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:52]:
I completely agree. And I think that there's a little contrarian, which is funny because I bet you it's starting to be more and more, not contrarian mark my words right now in three, four or five years, it's going to be commonplace. It's going to be absolutely switched. They're going to be like, yeah, why would you co sign your child's loan if you don't agree with their life choices?

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:08]:
It's funny. I just saw a TikTok about this girl. She was crying. She said, did you know that even if parents are doing well financially, they don't have to co sign your loans? And she was weeping about not being able to go get a communications degree. And I'm like, your dad is a genius not to co sign those loans. Cause it's going to take you seven years to graduate with a communications degree that you don't need to get an entry level digital marketing job that pays $30 a year. Just go do that now. And it was crazy because the comments were pretty mixed and I would say a year or two ago that would have not been the case.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:35]:
It would have been everybody going, oh, I can't believe you did that. The boomers are so selfish, but a lot of people were like, well, you don't need a communications degree to do basically anything so good on your dad. Yeah. It was interesting to see the flip.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:46]:
But boomers aren't even their parents. Whatever is the generation is above millennials is now the parents. They're not boomers. Boomers were like millennials parents.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:57]:
Right. Our parents.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:58]:
I mean, the people on the younger generation, they might be just touching that last year. I don't, you

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:04]:
know what?

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:04]:
So basically

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:05]:
they're like 40 to like 40 to 55, I think is the general age range. But it was funny.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:11]:
But the main thing that I want to say here is that like, it's your money, it's your effort. It's your time. If you go on and sign onto this debt and they don't come out on the other end better economically for it, better financially for it, then you're going to be on the hook to pay these loans down the line. And that might mean that it comes out of your retirement, as you were saying, or that might mean that maybe it doesn't come out of your retirement account, account, but it might push in to you having to work longer instead of retiring at 67 or be 65. Now you have to retire at 70. It's a vicious cycle. And I want to tell the parents listening to this. I don't think that that makes you a bad parent.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:45]:
I think that it makes you a good parent. I think it

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:48]:
makes you a loving parent because it's difficult to do that. And that doesn't mean you don't love your child. Part of the reason you would say no to co signing those loans is because you don't want to see your child in that kind of debt either. And that's a really tough thing to do. And so the last problem that I see here is that your daughter does not see another way to become an illustrator and that she's also probably really terrified to try any other way because she's terrified to try period. Now this is largely from my own experience, but also my own personal experience of going through this. Cause I went to that charter art school that was a feeder school to SCAD. That's exactly what it was.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:21]:
It was the school fed directly into SCAD. That was their big claim to fame was, oh, we're a pipeline into admission to Savannah College Art and Design. And a lot of creatives do this and they hide because they're scared, especially when it's something that they haven't really shown. So a lot of your illustrators, people who do drawing or anything like that, they do it a lot on their own and they won't show anybody and they won't do anything with it. And that's because they're scared to try on their own. She wants the paper first to protect her and to validate her as an artist before she tries to make a career out of it. The problem is that creatives that don't have it in them to try yet should not try to be career creatives. They especially should not be paying art school prices to try.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:04]:
It's extremely tough being a creative because you're probably going to be self employed. W-two artistic positions and illustration positions are going to pay extremely poorly. They do not pay very high and that's because you have to pay your dues because lots of people want to be those things. But the fact is that you have to be willing to accept whatever the entry level market wage is. And unfortunately for a lot of people, the amount of student that there'll be in from buying an art degree to become an illustrator will prevent them from taking entry level work. And no amount of permission or paper is gonna give them the confidence to try. So for your daughter, an art degree is not gonna give her the confidence to become an illustrator. It's just not gonna do it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:41]:
She will more than likely try to stay on campus, try to get a master's degree to avoid risking failure because a lot of creatives are like that. It's really hard if you are creative or if you are artistic to show those things to other people, because you want to keep them close. You don't want anyone to hurt it. You don't want anyone to criticize it. And that's why I think that very few people actually should be career artists because they have to be able to risk showing to other people what they have done. So the solution to this is really you have to help her come alongside her and support her in finding it within herself to see if she actually wants a career as an artist. Because if she's not willing to try now, she will not be willing to try later either. That is not going to change with $160,000 worth of debt.

Hannah Maruyama [00:31:20]:
What is gonna happen? She's gonna get that degree. She's gonna realize, oh, the opportunities I have are the exact same ones I would have had five and a half years ago and 160,000 or $300,000 ago. And she is still gonna be too scared to show her art to people. And now she will not have the ability to take entry level work because she's gonna have to pay down that student debt. I recommend a really good book for this. It's called The Artist's Way, and it teaches a lot about mindset and helps with confidence in artistic vision and living your life as a creative person. She has to try to do it herself. If she is not going to try it all now, she will not be a successful career artist because there's going to be a lot of failure in that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:31:55]:
Another thing is that for artists now, this is a hard thing for a lot of artists to hear, but if you are an artist, you need people to buy your work or pay you. You are going to be self employed. You are going to be a business owner. Your business is selling your own labor and selling your own creation, and you need to learn how to market. You either have to do that locally, farmers markets, galleries, local business owners, local book publishers, or you have to learn how to do it online. And a lot of artists will tell you this when we've made content about this before, they will say, I wish I had just gone and learned a bunch of marketing. Cause that's what I needed. And that's the only way for them to actually be successful because you don't have business coming in the door.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:31]:
You can't support yourself as a creative person because your customer or your patrons, whether they're paying you for commission work, whether they're paying you from a company, no matter what, and you're gonna have to have people coming in the door. So I freelanced a little bit myself and I took some commission work. So if I were to decide I wanted to do that right now, what I would do and what your daughter should do is start an Instagram or a Twitter or an Etsy or a Pinterest or a TikTok, and then take her work and show it and then try to get commission. That's what she should do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:56]:
So I wanted to stop you right there. And couple of things, you're talking to artists and you're talking to Gianna's daughter specifically. But I think what you're saying can also be true of many other paths as well. As far as the validation and everything like that. And before we move on the assumption that we're making that she's timid and that she doesn't want to show her work, it's actually a big assumption that you're making right now. And we don't know. But the validation, what you're talking about with art school and with school in general, that artists need, that's not just artists. A lot of people that are going to college that are going to school, they're actually going there for that validation to say, I am proficient in this because I got this piece of paper.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:36]:
I bought this piece of paper. I did all these classes. I did all these work. Here's this piece of paper that therefore makes me proficient in X, Y, and Z. And it is a lot of that external validation that you need to have that internal validation to then go out and try to get a job and try to get How do I know that validation permeates other industries is because that was me. And I'm as far away from artistic as you can possibly be in pretty much anything. I don't really do anything artistic.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:08]:
You drew a stick figure the other day. That was so beautiful. It made me cry. And then he went, wow, that was pretty cool. It was a doodle. Do you remember that you did? It was pretty good. I said, do you know what? You have improved a lot.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:18]:
I was illustrating something completely different, but the first line that I drew was so bad from what I was trying to make that I turned it into like a boat.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:30]:
That's true. It was an arrow.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:32]:
It was so bad or something like that. And then I was like, oh yeah, that's the hull of my boat. Nevermind.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:38]:
And he did. That's true. But the boat was actually fairly presentable. It was pretty okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:42]:
So anyway, I think that external validation to then have the inner competence to then go and take action is prevalent everywhere with everything. And I think that's the number 1 thing that colleges are selling is the validation. I mean, that's what they're selling.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:56]:
Yes. Permission.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:57]:
Exactly. They're selling, Hey, you're validated. Now you can go out there in the market, but really all you need is to go out into the market. You can skip that whole first part and then just go out into the market, especially in roles like this.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:08]:
I feel like there's another layer for artists specifically for illustrators because they may get the validation in quotes, but they're still not going to feel like a professional. You can graduate with accounting degree and then go get an accounting job. And now you're an accountant. You are not an artist until you have published or gotten paid for something you've made.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:25]:
I agree with what you're saying, but you just said you can go to college and then you can get a job as an accountant, which is the exact same as you can do work and then get a job as an illustrator. But the person doesn't have that validation until they become an accountant.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:38]:
I think it's different because so much of it is based on your creativity. I think it's different because it doesn't fit into this generic box. Like there's not a massive demand for like her specific brand of illustration. You have to create it because it's not the same as accounting. There's demand for accounting because people have math that they need to get done. There's not necessarily demand for your specific brand of illustration. You have to create it. You have to close it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:59]:
And that's really difficult to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:00]:
I see what you're saying, but what I'm saying, and this leads into my second point that permeates all industries is that, you know, you're, oh, as an artist, you have to be a marketer. As somebody that lives in this industry, is that, you know, you're, oh, as an artist, you have to be a marketer. As somebody that lives in this capitalist society that we live in where we work and then we make money and we use money to pay for the things that we need, as long as that is the case, we have a job and we trade our time and effort and our skills for money. And then we use that money to then go ahead and buy the things that we need, our housing, our clothes, our food, whatever, our gas, our cars. As long as we live in that society, I think that everybody in every industry is a marketer. And you're always constantly marketing your skills where I think it is the same thing as what you're saying is like an accountant. What makes you different than another accountant? It is the maybe possibly the accuracy of the reports that you're giving. And then maybe not just the accuracy, but if they're just as accurate, okay, well then it's the type of reports that you're giving.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:51]:
If you're given the same type of reports, then it's the insights of the data that you're giving. And that's in any industry. Every industry has that thing. And it's that creation or it's that creativity within that industry that shows that you are effective and every industry has it. And if you are a better marketer, you will then get more job opportunities.

Hannah Maruyama [00:37:10]:
I do agree with that. I just have a slightly different view of it because your supply with accounting is there are books, the books need to be done. There can be 0 demand for your artwork, or there can be a ton of demand for your artwork because it's specifically only 1 person in the world can create it at any 1 time. It's in of 1.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:25]:
I agree with what you're saying, but it's the same in accounting as well. Especially in the world that we live in where art illustration, those types of things, it's starting to be commoditized. I mean, just look at Sora. Look at OpenAI. You can go ahead, and it's rumored, right, that Tyler Perry, he had, whatever it was, a $200,000,000 I'm getting the numbers wrong. Wrong. It was a couple hundred million dollar or a 40,000,000. Those are astronomically different.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:49]:
Well, it was a very expensive studio that he was thinking about building and he canceled it when he saw what AI was capable of doing. And that was a year ago, or that was a year and a half ago that he was like, yeah, cancel construction, this whole thing. We're not doing it. And that's rumor. I don't have any primary sources on that. I don't even have secondary sources on that. And the same thing is true now. Like, so look at.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:10]:
SORA. Look what it can do. Now, look at accounting. Look what it can do. It answers a lot of accounting questions better than an accountant. And illustration, it can probably make better illustrations better than these entry level people. Better, quicker, faster. The iteration loops are quicker.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:24]:
And there's no what you were just saying, which is, oh, I get my feelings hurt because you don't like this. Whereas AI doesn't care. They're just gonna iterate and iterate and iterate. In that world where the lowest rungs of everything is getting commoditized, everybody's a marketer. And the thing that matters is creativity. The things that matter is synthesis between different things and connecting the dots within your industry. It just so happens that for artists, it is totally like I'm bearing my soul. That's what you're saying.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:48]:
Oh, you're an artist. You have to like bear your soul. And it's so hard and so difficult, but an accountant has to bear their soul to it in a certain place. Oh, here's the financials. Here's what I think we should do. And then if you're an accountant, maybe you're acting a little bit more as a controller. We're like, Hey, I think that we can spend money on this, this month. I think we can spend money on this, this quarter and so on and so forth.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:05]:
And there's more creativity on what you're doing. And if your boss is asking for, hey, I need the P and L, I need this, I need this. And you instead, you start seeing you're able to give them all of the reports and all of the clean data, but then you're like, look, actually these 2 numbers combined, this is what really matters. Instead of what you're looking at are lagging indicators, what I've noticed here, these are leading indicators and that is bearing your soul. Hey, that is how brilliant you are. And that is how not brilliant you are.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:29]:
And this is the last thing I'll say about this. Cause now you and I are getting into it, like our theories about AI and stuff like that. All of our episodes, it's AI, but it's my belief that the humanity of illustrators and their particular brands, people who are not very good. And I say good because there is good and bad art. Good and bad art is determined by who buys it and who supports it. Unfortunately, that's just how it is. If nobody cares about your art, it's not that good because it doesn't matter if it's good if no people care about it because the whole point of art is to be cared about. But now we're into philosophical things.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:59]:
My point here is that there are people who are going to be, let's just say illustrators that illustrate children's books. That's a really low hanging fruit. There is going to be an element of when AI is able to pump out all of these illustrations really quickly, there's humanity in hand drawn things. And I believe that people are going to be able to build massive brands on their specific hand drawn things because it's theirs. It's human and humans can tell the difference between AI and human created art. And there's just something to it that AI lacks. It lacks soul. Maybe I guess it is soul, but I believe that there is a space for these illustrators, but they have to compete with that flood of AI.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:33]:
They have to be really, really good marketers. Exactly like you said with accountants. So maybe we do agree, and we've come around in a full circle. So I'll tie this up with just being really actionable. Gianna, thank you if you stayed through this whole thing. But for your daughter, have her start a a Fiverr account or an Upwork account or an Etsy, if she's not willing to try now, she's not going to be willing to try after she buys $160,000 degree because she will not be able to truthfully. She will not have time because she's going to have to work 2 or 3 jobs in order to pay just her student loan debt payments. And those debt payments will dictate what she needs to earn in order to support herself.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:03]:
And she will no longer be able to afford to be a struggling artist. You can't have $160,000 of debt. If you want to be a struggling artist, you can be a struggling artist and try to build your brand. You cannot spend that much money and then try to build your brand. It is too costly for somebody who's that young. The other thing too, is that I found some creatives find that they dislike using their art as a job. And this is a really safe way for her to explore that before she that before she commits to it as a career. Some artists really hate being told what they need to create.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:30]:
So for her wanting to be an illustrator, but not having taken a job where she has to take orders from somebody in order to create something and not have something from her own head, that may not be something she actually wants to do. And it's not something she should pay four and a half to five years and multiple 6 figures to find out. She needs to be sure that it can support her financially before she quits her day job. If she wants to pursue that she has to find some other way to support herself and then build a career as an artist on the side, and then proof out whether or not it can support the needs that she has. And then that is the responsibility that you build an illustration career if you don't have 300000 laying around. But I hope that this was helpful because there's a lot here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:08]:
John, I hope that this was helpful. The beginning part, I know that you wanted us to expand her horizons, or I know that you want to know more of her options. The very first part of the episode where we talked about going through her needs and going through her wants, that is going to give you all of her options that is outside of illustration. That is what's going to do it. And there's a lot of research involved with it. I mean, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort, but the good news is that you already have have the toolkit there. You have the degree freeway and we walk you through all of the steps to go ahead and highlight what it is in her life that she needs and what she wants.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:44]:
So that's the good part. As far as addressing whether or not she wants to do it, that's the tough part. Hopefully, we gave you a couple of things there. Now, if you wanted her mind to be expanded about being an illustrator and about other ways to do it, the last 3 problems that we went through and the thoughts we gave you there were useful. For anybody else that wants to get their question answered, go to ask.degreefree.co. And anybody who wants to get the Degree Free way, go to degreefree.co/book. You can pick up your copy there. And I think that's pretty much it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:10]:
Until next week, guys.