literature degrees

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JUSTIFY THEIR EXISTENCE

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I am half way through one of these degrees and I can't justify it. My 'real' job is as a midwife, and that is exactly what I will still be doing when I finish this degree. Maybey I will just use longer words when I am talking to my patients. Like postmodernism. or haemmorhoids.

― kath (kath), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I dunno, now that I'm an adult I fantasize about being a 14-year-old English public-school boy about ninety years ago, post-Wilde and yet still ready to receive an old-fashioned immersion in the classics... yeah yeah, and corporal punishment, but still and all...

If they were really well done I think they'd be fun to get. Don't know what immediate practical value it'd have but... mmm fun.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, Kath, that is amazing. I had the good fortune of seing a baby emerge (water birth) and was speechless. I think you are pursuing a perfect dichotomy - we are all pregnant with words. And history. And memory.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 04:51 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks aimurchie.
Mostly I have a good day at work.
Sometimes the dichotomy can be problematic. I have to switch off the nuturing/ medical/ nursey part of me when I am at university, or else I find it difficult dealing with the self - indulgent waffle that some of my fellow students spout. Its like ' get a life' or ' get some life experience' ( probably also because I am about 20 years older than most of them!)

― kath (kath), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I am also an "adult" student - but I tend to scare them away. A friend of mine, who is a mom and an adult student, refers to her classmates as "ducklings" - they tend to follow her around and she feels like she should be providing snacks.
It must be hard to deliniate.
I bet your Profs. love you!
My relationships are all with the faculty - and that is another slippery slope, conundrum.
i am going into a program designed for adult students this fall - thank God!
I love the youngsters - but i don't want to be in class with them every day.

― aimurchie, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 06:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't imagine not having my degree... it exposed me to so much that my rural background wouldn't even let me imagine.

It also got me a bunch of jobs doing things like reviewing books...

― August (August), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 06:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Kath I'm a midwfe too! Apropos (or is it xpost?) of lit degrees how grand to spend time studying interesting stuff, maybe that's the justification - have fun at uni.

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 10:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a BA and MA in English Lit. I can't say I USE them but they're there. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Without my lit. degree, I may have had a more difficult time entering the publishing world. So that was helpful. But otherwise, I don't think it did much for me -- I've learned far more about literature in my years out of school than I did in it. Though perhaps it varies, program to program? I would like to have had a better all-around grounding in the classics (including modern classics) than I had, though sometimes I think more of this should happen at the secondary level.

Of course, maybe if I would have gone to all those classes I skipped, I would now be a literature genius of some kind. Where were my priorities back then?

― nory (nory), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a BA in English Lit. and I can't think of many justifications for it. I did have a couple of fantastic professors who I think challenged me to improve my writing and critical thinking skills, but that's about it.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

How does anyone USE their education? It just becomes part of who you are, how you view things, how you analyze and interact. I'm not sure I like the common trend of viewing education as a commodity in the marketplace.

Did my B.A. train me for the "real world"? Absolutely, though it didn't give a trade skill.

― SJ Lefty, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

My favourite Literature Prof always asks me into his office for a wee dram of scotch when I am picking up texts/ assignments etc. He has bottles tucked all over his office. I think he just likes to talk to me about his medical ailments. And yes, I always seem to pass with flying colours. I just wish he would stop asking me to palpate his liver.
I also think I frighten most of the ducklings. Perhaps I should stop wearing my blood stained uniform to university classes.
tom west ( who originally posted this thread) I am almost too scared to ask - (ever since the Virginia Woolf episode)..but are you, or have you ever studied an Arts degree? ...

― kath (kath), Thursday, 1 July 2004 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a BA and MA in English Lit. and when I started work seriously and find out I'd always had inferior wages to my collegues that have a degree in Business, i was rather cross for a while...then i was given a scholarship to a master's course in marketing. and i survived the jobs I found afterwards, only because I discovered Dickens travelling to and from work.
now I'm very proud of my humanistic degree. i feel it has given me a perspective that i most value.
edward said would be able to express better than me what i mean, he did that to me in a few of his essays...

― misshajim (strand), Thursday, 1 July 2004 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, i am in fact an arts degree

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 1 July 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

but since the radioactive spider bit me i can talk

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 1 July 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

the spider could talk because it had been bitten by a radioactive man. it called itself man-spider. um. sorry this is stupid. i'm an english undergraduate but i really don't like to admit it wherever possible

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 1 July 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a BA in Lit. But I'd rather be Spiderman. I have not used my degree for job purposes in the over two year span since I graduated. I miss my professors and friends in the department who were passionate. I have decided against pursuing literature in graduate school, due to the sinister nature of the academic lit. world.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 1 July 2004 15:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a BA in English and Related Literature (stupid title - I mean what is 'related'? It seemed to involve Dante somewhere.)

Haven't used it in any economic sense, but in another sense I use it every day. Wouldn't go back and do something else even if I could. Now I'm doing a professional rather than academic MA and feel pretty well-balanced I suppose.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

Speaking of the sinister nature of the academic lit. world, what is the name of the Robertson Davies book about the same topic. I think one of the characters ( a literature prof) kills another one by sticking knitting needles up his nose.
and remember
spiderman does what spiders can.

― kath (kath), Sunday, 18 July 2004 02:55 (twenty-one years ago)

blah blah blah

― kath (kath), Sunday, 18 July 2004 02:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Why should literature degrees have to be singled out for justification? They're as justifiable as any one of two-dozen other degrees, like communications, sociology, history, or "family and consumer science" (which is how my old alma mater dresses up - and I kid you not - a college degree in home economics). All any of these degrees really do is attest to the ability of the holder to perform a certain level of thinking.

If anything, given what is involved in a degree in literature, I would argue that a person could do a LOT worse than major in literature. Between intaking vast amounts of information and learning to think critically about what they're reading, they're gaining valuable skills while studying something that is considerably more enriching - culturally and personally - than your standard poli sci text.

― Mark Klobas, Saturday, 24 July 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Heh, I'd actually agree with that to a large extent, in that while I don't make my living from the subject, what I did learn and how I learned it turned out to be pretty handy stuff.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 24 July 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a bachelor of commerce, but my ex-gf had a literature degree and she went into 3D animation; knew nothing 'bout good books that girl.

― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 24 July 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

aimurchie, is financial aid impossible for adult students to get without a heavy loan?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Saturday, 24 July 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

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