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Originally Posted by luxinterior
That's a shame. I have to ask though, was that particular college writing program just lacking, or do you think it's pretty much the same situation all across the board?
It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I learned something new pertaining to writing that I hadn't already been taught in grade school. Basically, high school as a whole was pretty boring and unchallenging until that year.
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I have no idea; I only have my college experience to go on, and it was a gigantic waste of time, money and youth. I did go to a respected major university, and was being taught things at the senior level that I learned as a high school freshman. In my last class (the straw that broke the camel's back), I was writing all my papers straight off the top of my head the night before or the same day they were due, receiving top grades on all of them. No challenge, no sense of accomplishment, no interest in taking the class or the professor seriously. I do think I had a very good series of teachers in high school that helped me put my facility to write to good use with helpful (and sometimes tough) pointers and criticism. I felt none of this at the University, but I did feel a crushing and stifling sense of self-importance from my professors, who made it perfectly clear that getting the grade simply involved playing their game and giving them what they were looking for to satisfy their perspective on what "excellent" is. This happened in both fine arts and writing. I felt no sense of inspiration or enrichment from any of them the entire time.
I realize that my college experience was particularly negative, but it has not stopped me from believing in my heart that the 4 year Liberal Arts degree is a gigantic sham. I will always feel this way. If your skills and interests do not lie in computers, science or business, you will simply have a harder time earning a good living than people who are interested in or good in those areas. I have several friends who are high-school dropouts with great facilities for computer work, and they make far more money than I ever have. Trade schools are more of a meal ticket than universities by far, and the argument that the years spent in pursuit of your degree in Arts/Lit/Humanities are "worth it" for the "personal enrichment" factor simply does not wash in my experience, nor does it justify the time and costs of doing that.
If you love school and can afford it, go for it. You might have the time of your life; who am I to say?
I just know that I learned precious little that I didn't already know during all my years in college, and felt no more "enriched" having been through it than I would have had I spent that time and money in other ways.
To !@#$%!: I am sure you have noticed (as have I) the amount of people employed by publications of all stripes who are painfully ignorant as well as horrendous writers, and I am sure the bulk of them (especially in the newspapers) have been through the degree programs of some of our nations "finest" institutions. It gives you the piece of paper for playing the game; it cannot make you a good writer if you just don't "have it."