I've been out in the real world just long enough to know that my college degree is useless and I'll never use it. I could have been in the working world 4 years earlier and probably be making more money by now.
I have an English degree which results in 2 things:
1) Everybody responds, "Oh, so you want to be a teacher!" My favorite is when they ask me while I'm sitting at my desk at work. I just want to look to my right, then to my left, look back at him/her, stare blankly, and say, "No."
2) I am schooled and hereby qualified... to read and think about what I read.
Last night I finished As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. To give a brief synopsis: An aging mother, who never loved her family, decides she doesn't want to live anymore. She goes to her hope chest and puts on a nightgown she's never worn and climbs into bed and waits to die. About 10 days later, she dies. Her surviving family (every one of them emotionally retarded) is the poorest family around and it takes them an additional 10 days of wandering around in the heat to finally bury the corpse. There's a lot more to it than that, but it gives you an idea of how messed up this book is.
Then I remembered: You read some pretty sick shit in college. Poe- effed up, Faulkner- effed up, Nabokov and O'Connor- effed up. I was pretty lucky to get a college degree, and all I had to do was read some books about incest, murder, death, and sex?
Score.
Friday, May 20, 2005
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6 comments:
Ever have to read H.P. Lovecraft? That was one screwed up MoFo. Seriously. He makes Stephen King and Poe seem like pussy cats. It is pretty good (a little too wordy).
So you completely hate James Patterson then, right?
I want to go back to school, but I just don't know what for. My mother-in-law who is also my boss said her company would pay for it FULLY if I just went for something that they could use. Like business or what-not. I only am interested in Psychology, but she said she did not need a full time therapist for her employees. Booooo.....
To be honest, I've never read him. I like to stay with the classics. When I feel that I've caught up, then I'll branch out. Typically the only contemporaries I read are people that I've met. I can be a bit of a literary snob.
As my last boss kindly told me, my
English degree allows (or proves) me to be polished and well-spoken, and we English majors tend to catch nuance and subtlety better than most people. All that "deeper understand of human nature" comes in handy when reading a room, which I feel is the ultimate job tool.
But yes, it is annoying as crap when people ask you about the teaching thing. I got lucky in that I work for a magazine now, doing proofing and editing, but surprisingly enough, there are no fellow English majors knocking on the door for a job. The girl in the office who has the most similar position to mine has zero college credits and refuses to read anything but Dean Koontz and Patricia Cornwell.
Ooh! You reminded me! I had an English professor that said being an English major teaches "elasticty of the mind." But I'll have to remember your reason for future job interviews.
I HATE that question! Seriously, when I was an English Major (They screwed me over at the last minute and I had to switch) everyone said "oh, you want to teach." NO! Freakin' A, you can do other stuff with an English major. Sometimes I feel like Girl, Interuppted everytime they say "what do you plan to do?" And she always has to say "I plan to write." and it's never good enough for them.
I always wanted to say to them, "If I wanted to be a teacher, I'd be an education major."
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