[acousticrock87]

Basically college is, first and foremost: an excuse to not have a full-time job, a chance to figure out what you really want to do in life, and a place to meet girls (or guys, whatever).

At the same time, you get to enrich yourself with whatever you choose to, set your own schedule, and get another notch in your belt in the career ladder. Plus, it's not like high school - it constantly changes. It doesn't get boring unless you just concentrate on on or two things. You really are free to do whatever in college. It's like a job, but easier.

[!@#$%!]

yeah short story classes suck and don't really give you any "art" (nobody can teach you to be creative). however, to be a professional writer (not "artist" but magazine hack), it helps to have a good education unless you're a bona fide genius. for every palahniuk, there are millions of wannabe "artists" churning out illegible crap. on the other end of the spectrum, however, a friend of mine i met at that writing program just started making $75K/year, with benefits etc etc, as a staff writer in a company i shall not mention, after 10 years of doing trade magazines, freelancer shit & business journalism, while teaching writing on the side, and living on the brink of bankruptcy. yes, it's not a millionaire salary (and i'm sure palahniuk has a fat bank account) but i'd submit it's good enough money to live decently and comfortably as a writer. most "writers" make about $300 a year with their craft and require additional employment. check out some stats.

now, read "the wire" & tell me those people never got an education or aren't schooled in music. some probably have teaching jobs. 4 years of college is cake when you have a good reason. and it can be a ton of fun if you're enjoying what you do.

[Savage Clone]

Staff positions are also incredibly rare, and almost all work in this area is freelance scrambling for chicken feed, especially if you want to write about music that is actually good.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

Staff positions are also incredibly rare, and almost all work in this area is freelance scrambling for chicken feed, especially if you want to write about music that is actually good.

well staff positions are rare but not as rare as palahniuk's career. gmku is also a staff writer in a university, no? i hadn't considered his advice for journalism school, that's another option that certainly makes sense. i have 2 friends who are journalists (my brother in law & another guy i know through him) & they both work at major newspapers doing actually pretty good (boston globe & ny times). dude #2 actually got an MFA in non-fiction writing & is working on a book. however-- they both spent years at shit newspapers & news agencies working night shifts and developing migraines before they landed their cushy jobs.

since the chances are so slim anyway, an education actually improves your chances to be taken seriously, negotiate a good salary, etc. yes everybody needs clips no doubt but knowledgeable writing gets your foot in the door a lot faster than amateurish prose. yes there are "naturals" who need no education, but those are the mozarts of the writing world, and usually have huge amounts of self-discipline to educate themselves while they write.

[Inhuman]

Originally Posted by dazedcola

I would really appreciate some help from other people here. I've come to the decision that i want to write about music for life.I love music, I have a real passion for it and i like writing about.I've already written a few articles for a zine online.(perfect sound forever)

The problem is i know what i want to do but i dont know how to get there ? I want to eventually be writing about music for a paper or magazine but i dont know how to arrive at that point ?

Do I need a degreee from college to write about music ? When i apply for a job will they be expecting some kind of college degree thing or just for me to show samples of my work ? Do you get started in this field by interning somewhere ? Im real confused.

There must be some people here that want to do the same thing i do or just no one someone that does so they could maybe get some info to point me in the right direction.

Well what do you know, I'm buying a domain next month and starting a music review site. It's based on underground music in general, but probably not focusing on music such as the Youth's Geffen releases, Pavement, etc... I'll send you a PM and I can give you the information about it, I'm looking for people to write reviews!

[Savage Clone]

The problem I have with it is the fact that one can easily hone one's own skills with a high-school level of writing education. You either have the facility for it or you don't, and I did not receive one iota of writing "education" in college beyond what I received in high school. It was EXACTLY the same stuff being taught in both institutions, even at senior college level. This is why my resentment for the college education is so high.

[Cantankerous]

Fuck college.

[luxinterior]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

The problem I have with it is the fact that one can easily hone one's own skills with a high-school level of writing education. You either have the facility for it or you don't, and I did not receive one iota of writing "education" in college beyond what I received in high school. It was EXACTLY the same stuff being taught in both institutions, even at senior college level. This is why my resentment for the college education is so high.

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.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

The problem I have with it is the fact that one can easily hone one's own skills with a high-school level of writing education. You either have the facility for it or you don't, and I did not receive one iota of writing "education" in college beyond what I received in high school. It was EXACTLY the same stuff being taught in both institutions, even at senior college level. This is why my resentment for the college education is so high.

ah, see, i don't know that because i didn't go to highschool in this country. but then again there are universities and universities, and some will have better journalism schools or writing programs than others, and musicology, well, it's a rather obscure field, so he's bound to do some good learning if he has good professors. i know also that it's pretty easy to spot uneducated writing-- yes you COULD (in theory) educate yourself, but the sad fact is that not many people do it, and if you can get scholarships & loans to help you do it instead of doing that after flipping burgers all day, i say go for it.

btw, you know i am not in favor of college for all (this is where i dissent with gmku, though perhaps it's a middle class right of passage more than anything, and on that i don't have an opinion). for an education in itself, however, i strongly believe that some people are better off with a technical education or with some kind of apprenticeship according to the work they are capable and willing to do. but in THIS particular case, i think dazedcola could use the degree. ignorant writers are the bane of the written word. and if he wants to make a living as a writer, he should try to increase his odds from the start.

[Savage Clone]

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.

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."

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

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."

yes man, there are a lot of animals out there unfortunately, iand college is not the holy grail of enlightentment, but i have to say though that most TRULY IGNORANT people i've met are those who didn't have any college. not that all college-free people are so, only that the statistics are heavily in slanted in that direction. college-educated people TEND to have a more open mind about unknown subjects while the less educated tend to feel threatened by what they ignore. i know college is a lot like summer camp for grownup kids (i taught college while in gradschool), and while many professors are a bunch of blowhards more interested in covering up their insecurities, every now and then you run into a star that can revolutionize the way you see the world and think about things (and im not talking about fucking the prof, ha ha).

also some of the most interesting/exciting/specfuckingtacular conversations i've had with other people have been a) in college, b) in gradschool. everywhere else, especially in this country, knowledge and intellectual activity are held pretty much in contempt.

also- i think you either had a great highschool (was it private? or a good school district?) or were too smart for the college you attended, or both.

[Savage Clone]

I know what you mean, and I can see some of that, but I will say that part of the reason "academics" are held in contempt by the rest of society is because they often speak from the smug and blanketed perspective of someone who is able to live in a vacuum of esoterica, blissfully uninvolved with survival in the outside world. It's a highly self-congratulatory environment filled with individuals patting each other on the back for being able to live in a world where they are paid to do little else but pass along their particular minute obsession to generations of fresh-faced youngsters who are mortgaging their own futures with student loans they will be paying off for decades to come, instead of buying homes for themselves.

I wish there were more specialized programs for writing degrees like we have for art schools and tech schools, where the whole "liberal arts" component could be voluntary instead of mandatory. I just may have had the patience to complete the program had I not had to waste time and money on useless requirements I didn't care about that supposedly make me such a "well-rounded" individual now.
I got enough of the world of academic requirements in high school.
One should be able to design one's own curriculum (you know, a set number of credits in a set of levels within a particular area of interest) when one is shelling out so many thousands of dollars.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

I know what you mean, and I can see some of that, but I will say that part of the reason "academics" are held in contempt by the rest of society is because they often speak from the smug and blanketed perspective of someone who is able to live in a vacuum of esoterica, blissfully uninvolved with survival in the outside world. It's a highly self-congratulatory environment filled with individuals patting each other on the back for being able to live in a world where they are paid to do little else but pass along their particular minute obsession to generations of fresh-faced youngsters who are mortgaging their own futures with student loans they will be paying off for decades to come, instead of buying homes for themselves.

well maybe, but i think it's because most people prefer sports and cheeseburgers. in other countries, instead of fox news loudmouths you have public intellectuals commenting on current events and what not. writers get buried in the national cemeteries instead of next to gas stations. streets are named after painters, poets, philosophers. here instead fox news denounces the "cultural elite" and drives the populace to support a stupid war.

also while i know and detest the vacuum of intellectual wankery, i can tell the difference between that and a lively, passionate and yes, esoteric discussion between people who care about a subject. nothing wrong with esoteric-- on the contrary-- i like elites because they contribute what nobody else can. for example, when you and scott v discuss music here it makes a pretty interesting read. i'm sure some people who feel threatened by what they ignore will think you two are showing off, but i think it's obvious to most of us that this is a genuine interest. i say more esoteric discussions and less stupidity is what we need.

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

I wish there were more specialized programs for writing degrees like we have for art schools and tech schools, where the whole "liberal arts" component could be voluntary instead of mandatory. I just may have had the patience to complete the program had I not had to waste time and money on useless requirements I didn't care about that supposedly make me such a "well-rounded" individual now.
I got enough of the world of academic requirements in high school.
One should be able to design one's own curriculum (you know, a set number of credits in a set of levels within a particular area of interest) when one is shelling out so many thousands of dollars.

eh man, there are such programs, for sure, and great schools for it. ut at austin has a graduate program funded by best-selling hack james michener that teaches tv, film/theatre and ficiton writing in 14 months-- no poets reading to poets-- it's professionally oriented. there are also great schools of journalism, some in affordable state schools. my own writing program, though in a mediocre university (being a foreigner i could afford no better), was pretty good due to the presence of some very interesting poets and the grad students it attracted (those grad students were often our teachers). "liberal arts" as a MAJOR is a pretty loose cluster of courses for people who don't know what to do. a "liberal arts education" however does not need to imply that you'll be operating a fryer at macshit when you graduate-- you can be an architect and immerse yourself in art history on the side (not that there are many jobs for architects but that's another story), go to law school and get a fat helping of victorian novels on the way, etc-- 2 different things. i had a student who was going for medschool & was taking spanish literature courses & enjoying the process. i also know there are schools that let you design your own curriculum, if you so need. so it's not all a cesspool out there.

anyway, im shirking work, ha ha... i'd better get out of here & make some money... this has been an enjoyable exchange btw. i hope dazedcola picks up some useful pointers to avoid some of the pitfalls mentioned.

[Savage Clone]

I agree with you on most of this.
Esoteric is cool; you just have to be aware of the fact that to most of the world, your interests and obsessions are marginal at best. Elites are fine with me too, I just don't care much for the overall culture of academia. I have met some professors who I think are outstanding people with great value to impart to others; unfortunately, none of them were actually my professors in college.
As far as schools of writing go, I meant I would like to see them more as their own institutions, like we have for people who want to work with computers or become plumbers or carpenters. I know there are a few, but they are few indeed. You could design your own major at my school (in fact, I was customizing a major in music criticism when I decided to leave), but all the regular undergrad BA requirements still had to be met.
I think this thread has been pretty interesting in general, but I like the poop talk/toilet habit threads too, so I don't know what that means...

[Cantankerous]

who is that in your signature?