Tyler Said:

Is the AA degree and the AS degree at the same level?

We Answered:

Yes. AA is Associate of Arts. AS is Associate of Sciences. Both are community-college level degrees. They are one step below a BA (Bachelor of Arts) and BS (Bachelor of Science), respectively.

You should have no problem moving to an art school. Chances are you won't be entering an art school that requires a degree, but if you do, you should have no problem. Associate of Arts only means that it's "liberal arts," not "artistic art." Liberal arts includes speech, communications, marketing, advertising... pretty much everything that isn't "science," like math, biology, chemistry, etc.

Allan Said:

How has the word "Vocational" come to mean what it does today?

We Answered:

A lot of words change their meaning and sometimes come to mean the opposite of their original meaning.

Vocation originally meant being attracted to the religious life (literally a calling by God) but then became degraded to mean an attraction to any of the professions. Nowadays the word "profession" is used for many formerly non-professional occupations: this morning my farrier told me that farriery was now considered a profession (which we both laughed about) and they're supposed to do Continuing Professional Development!

Alongside "profession" being used for manual occupations, "vocational" is now used for manual labour training.

Crazy world we live in! I blame political correctness (which is neither political nor correct).