The Useless College Degree

Teaching Freud as if he alone knew how desire and the human mind worked is reactionary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_philosophy

you see, that seems like something which can give me real answers (and $$$ for sardines)

i moderate a little board called ask dr. freud and i think he alone knows everything

Can he tell dyao how to get money for sardines?

dyao go to nursing school

I probably will after I burn out of some other graduate program first

Well, I just graduated as an English major, so I think I can speak to the failings of English departments, as much as I love mine. And the fact that a lot of theory--postmodern and otherwise--that's flogged in English departments dismisses or ignores empirical research is a failing and saying so does not make me reactionary.

― kshighway1, Sunday, October 11, 2009 11:30 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dude u r actin like a crazy person with all this talk

I can say though that I'm well on my way to becoming a creepy high school English teacher

How am I wrong max?

wait 'empirical research' huh

Do you think someone like, say, Paul Churchland would take, "But Freud said it!" as a legitimate counterargument to any of his theories?

do you think any english professor would actually say that as a legitimate counterargument to any of his theories??

u are setting up hell of straw men

that's not how any of literary theory works is it? i hope

also empiricism is for nerds and english people so

No, but that wasn't my point. My point is that English professors treat Freud or Lacan as THE authority on everything epistemological. Maybe you had a different experience in college than I did, but as far as I can see it the only "psychology" that's accepted in English classrooms is psychoanalysis.

bro

stop saying "english professors do this"

No.

this is why none of you have jobs

Hahahahhaahaaaa

where did u get ur degree from, bad faith arguing university?

max, you haven't furnished me with any counterargument here. How did *your* professors treat psychoanalysis?

with varying degrees of agreement and skepticism?

OK, so you had a different experience than I did. I should've qualified what I said.

lolololol

ian, what do you think about Freud?

OK, so you had a different experience than I did. I should've qualified what I said.

― kshighway1, Sunday, October 11, 2009 11:50 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

duh

My wife got her BA in English and ended up getting her MA and PhD in Rhetoric and Composition, a field where there are a relatively high number of jobs compared to most english-related ones. Pretty much everyone we know from her school has a tenure track job somewhere and the academic job listings aren't anywhere near as sparse. Downsides include the aforementioned having to move to where the jobs are which kind of blows for me, but alas.

She's in an english department now with large number of lit people compared to the relatively small number of rhet-comp people, and they as a general rule don't really get what she which is seriously frustrating to her. A bunch of faculty were talking to the outgoing grad students about job applications this fall and the lit people were completely dire and depressing about everything, how nobody is going to get a tenure-track job, how you have to start somewhere tiny and work your way up, and how since this isn't Harvard you won't be taken seriously. She was kind of outraged because there are a decent number of rhet comp jobs out there and her department isn't exactly the Harvard equivalent (apparently that might be Purdue) but would probably be in the top ten.

yeah I saw Rhetcomp mentioned in a grad school forum as one of the few bright spots in terms of employment...but tbh I have no idea what it is

king's highway: I think Freud's ideas on human development and the mind are worth considering in some/many circumstances but i don't believe he's any type of Gold Standard OTM dude or anything.

don't see how that's relevant to the overall hilarity of this conversation.

"conversation"

joygoat, I didn't even know Rhetoric and Composition was a field before reading your post, but that's very interesting! I'm glad there's a field in the humanities that still has job openings.

i can hook u up with my ex xxxp

man that came out wrong

I just asked for a short definition of Rhetcomp and apparently that's pretty difficult to do. Basically it's a lot of teaching composition, writing, studying arguments and how language is used in day-to-day rather than literature settings, with some degree of crossover into philosophy.

omg this thread

all u english majors shld be usin yr skills to write sitcoms about barren yung women math majors work in finance until u hav enuff money to quit or your soul dies (worked for me) no1 with any curiosity abt the world doesnt sometimes think a different major wld have been rad ~ of course it wld be learning shit is awesome ~~~ im happy learning science fyi

Lamp OTM

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knowledge

see ya guys, I'm gonna work on my screenplay @ some indie cafe

jaymc, what did your philosophy classes cover?

It was really just a single class in contemporary continental philosophy. But the head of the philosophy department was really into it, and my friends who were philosophy majors were conversant in names like Derrida and Foucault way more than anyone in my English classes was. The approach in most of my English classes was close reading and analysis; occasionally, we'd talk about a feminist interpretation or put a text into historical context, but knowing the names of literary critics would've been seen as pretty high-level stuff. I'm not saying this to complain about my major at all, just amused at the notion that English majors everywhere are knowledgeable about Lacan. In fact, I think that a lot of English grad-school programs offer a crash course in critical theory for first-year students simply because people's undergrad experiences are so varied.

Oh, that's really neat!

Yeah, I made the mistake of universalizing my experience, which consisted of taking a required(!) critical theory course as part of my major, which led to my eventually doing work on Zizek and Derrida in the department.

And that's great that your professors taught Derrida and Foucault in your philosophy department. Anything after Gadamer was more or less absent from mine, but I think that will change in time. It's a small department.

lol this thread devolving into this is how people talk at college

lols to the max when i read kshighway's posts

I should just drop out of college.

i would advise against that tbh

Not a kshighway fan, velko?

Real question: For all of you who got an English degree, what did you end up doing? Did you go to grad school? What (serious) advice would you give to someone who just graduated with an English degree? (Besides, you know, freak out.)