The Useless College Degree

and this is in austin, which is supposed to be ~insulated~ from the recession

I'd never heard this. Tech and energy (the two biggest industries in Austin, IIRC) are far from immune, and Austin real estate was absurd during the boom.

So when I graduated, I didn't expect to get a fantastic job in anthropology (what would that even BE?), but I was surprised that it was so insanely difficult to even get an interview for a full time job, and that I ended up with multiple part-time hourly jobs instead (and not $400/wk like that bartending girl!).

^yes, this^

I got a psychology degree, and I while I knew I wasn't going to pursue it past a bachelor's, I figured that getting all A's and graduating with honors would at least land me a halfway decent job. Nope. I couldn't get interviews anywhere, not even for a temp agency, and ended up doing data entry for a year while still trying to call temp agencies and still not getting jobs. fuuuuck dude. Then I pulled a proto-Hoos and went to China to teach English, then I went to grad school when I got back. good luck USA

what was your idea of what your degree was for when you were degree-ing, by the way?

i switched into math from mechanical engineering thinking it would be more "useless" (fun) and i could just go to grad school to be a mathematician, and it sort of was but then i ended up not liking it. now i feel like i wish i knew more about machines and energy and stuff but that's just grass-is-greener and i know i'd be miserable in the typical engineering workplace so it's ok.

tbqh, as someone who's never been able to attend full-time, fuck all the bitching about the post-grad world.

I'm feeling conflicted about my Lit degree now - damn I like being able to analyze texts and breaking down arguments/making arguments and stuff but sometimes I wish I did a hard science where there are, you know, real answers that you just can't deconstruct into oblivion

kinda wanna go to lit grad school but I have a vision of a bunch of serious looking dudes in sweaters going "it complicates the text, do you see" over and over

haha yeah. "i think he did a good job problematizing the construction of ethnicity," etc.

always been pretty confused by my fellow english majors who regret or resent their degrees. unless you take for granted or begrudge your uh reasoning or writing skills

I would strongly dissuade anyone from pursuing graduate work in English unless you:

A) couldn't imagine doing anything else but being an English professor &
B) are comfortable moving to wherever the jobs are &
C) get into a program that will cover most or all of the cost &
D) are completely aware of how extremely difficult it is to obtain a tenure-track position &
E) are aware that, even if you do land a TT job, you will most likely be working at a teaching institution, where you have relatively little time to focus on your own research.

If all that's cool with you, go for it. But as far as I know, most people who go this route don't end up with the TT job. Which is almost definitely what you'd want to end up if you're pursuing a PhD in English.

yeah I read this article recently and it's done a pretty good job:

Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go

I'm trying to figure out what kind of grad school besides humanities a lit degree sets you up for; so far it's lol law school

if you like real answers you will *hate* law school

If anyone's considering graduate work in philosophy, you should probably read all of the following:

http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/ ( As well as their old archives here: http://philosophyjobmarket.blogspot.com/ )

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/advice_for_academic_job_seekers/
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/issues_in_the_profession/

xxp uh you could pretty much go for anything non math or science related ime if you really wanted to

yeah, I really gotta figure out what else I'm interested in besides humanities stuff.

dyao, I think I had read that article before, but I just re-read it and it seems fairly spot-on to me. Thanks for posting the link.

harbl yeah I can see that but I have to imagine it is a step above lit 'real answers' in terms of realness

not really dude

i mean not that i know

what is real, max

http://caravanofdreams.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/buddha-enlightenment1.jpg
Huuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

All English majors know that Lacan is the go-to guy for everything about the Real.

it's not really a step above. more of a lateral move i suppose. anyway it's really annoying what kind of arguments people can make to support whatever shitty conclusion they want. and how this can go on for a full class period. in practice it's a little better because there is a real person involved. but then you read a case where the judge has done the same thing. it sucks. it's not any more based on "reality" than your literature stuff. i like it (maybe because i like uncertainty and games, and thinking about stuff like literature lol) but it's messy.

do law people worry a lot about their writing style or do they just ram their points through in whatever way they see fit

like half the problem I have with writing in lit is that not only do I want to make a good point, I want to do it in style

i worry about my writing style but everyone says it's very good ^_^. a lot of people do not seem to understand what writing is.

People don't misuse outdated theoretical apparatuses like Freudian psychoanalysis and deconstruction to support their conclusions in law school though, I'd assume? Which at least makes your work there slightly more based in reality than a lot of what passes for "cogent argument" in English departments.

All English majors know that Lacan is the go-to guy for everything about the Real.

Man, I wished that the undergrad English classes I took dealt with critical theory in any significant way; I had to take philosophy classes for that (as well as a cultural studies course while on study abroad in the U.K.).

Not that deconstruction is outdated, per se, but the manner in which it is deployed as a critical methodology in certain instances in the context of English departments is terrifying.

jaymc, what did your philosophy classes cover? At my college, all of the post-Heideggerian philosophy, which the exception of Gadamer, was housed in the English department. In philosophy we had the opportunity to study anything between the pre-Socratics and Gadamer, and that was good but lacking. I mean, a lot has happened since Being and Time.

I did a lot of Freudian psychoanalysis in college, death drive and all that; my professor based his career on his reading of The Pleasure Principle

xpost

Thankfully, being an English major, I was able to study Zizek, Derrida, and many others.

Being a philosophy minor, I was lucky enough to obtain more of a firm grounding in the Western philosophical tradition than many of my peers. Even then, though, there was still no opportunity to study, say, Deleuze or any of the thinkers in the Speculative Realist movement. That being said, I'm thankful for what I did get to study.

xxxxxp eh no but imo it's a mistake to be all like these enlightenment principles are grounded in reality and freud isn't. tbh i don't even like to think of stuff as "based in reality" and not based in reality. i don't know. this could go on forever, i can't even explain it to myself.

lol lawyer

see dyao this is what i mean

yeah, i didn't even do that on purpose

you get to create your own reality though, which is really useful

yeah max but lawyers can get paid $$$ to do this

xpost

dyao, was the Freud guy a relatively old professor?

I recently heard an English major talk sadly about how all of the psychology professors only mention Freud in passing. My response to that attitude is to basically fault a lot of continental philosophy and critical theory for not incorporating the insights of empirical psychological research sooner. Many people in English seem to feel like once they read Freud (or Lacan) they have a complete and unfuckwithable grasp of the human psyche.

Which is bullshit.

dude you said you wanted real answers not $$$! xxpost

yeah kshighway, very old, and I'm not even sure he still remembers me (though I took two classes with him)

at least english professors have the decency to be deeply anxious about authenticity

harbl secretly I just want to fund my sardine habit

i know a place called sea world you can get paid in sardines

really what do I have to do

at least english professors have the decency to be deeply anxious about authenticity

― Bobby Wo (max), Monday, October 12, 2009 3:13 AM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark

If they only read some Heidegger!

Reading Derrida without a working knowledge of Heideggerian phenomenology is, at best, an awful idea.

language is a bunch of bullshit anyway, I eagerly await the day where humanity evolves into a big interconnected hive mind so meaning is always clear

i say, get a nursing degree

I've thought about it, parents would laugh at me

i think its important to base life decisions on what your parents would think