When I was working on my physics degree, I became acutely aware that I would become fixed in a mindset that was a result of the type of thinking that I was required to practice. There is a reason why physicists and mathematicians are stereotypically loopy and absent-minded. They spend their days immersed in a language that is not commonly spoken, studying ideas that are rarely considered.
I think this is true of a number of fields, but if your background is in the arts, when you start talking in "that language" people tend to think you're pretentious and/or douchey. To be fair, there are a lot of pretentious douches involved in the arts.
I can see that. However, I think the misfortune of those that study the arts is that they cannot apply their craft to the production of new technologies. Whether deserved or not, there's a certain legitimacy granted to those in endeavors that spawn material progress. Also, impostors sink in math.
I don't think it's necessarily true that people who study the arts "cannot apply their craft to the production of new technologies." After all, art is at its core about ideas and exploring them. There is innovation in the arts as there is in all things, though it's not always obvious what those things are, or how they contribute to the production of new technologies.