Creative and performing arts graduates: a pool of talent and industry insight

[Extract] Over the last ten years, I have engaged in a number of research projects exploring the impact of a higher education degree in the creative and performing arts for graduates seeking a career in the creative industries. In essence, I have discovered that a creative arts degree provides students with three significant career-building opportunities: 1) the opportunity to develop deep discipline knowledge in an area or areas of creative practice, 2) a network of peers and industry contacts and 3) the opportunity to engage with spaces and equipment that they would not necessarily be able to interact with outside the tertiary environment. On the other side of the coin, my research has identified that graduates in industry often report that they are insufficiently prepared for the complex nature of the creative industries work environments and the need to have business, enterprising and entrepreneurial attributes and a range of soft skills in what is a rapidly changing world and Asian century