I have come to this point in my college career and I must ask myself the all-important question why? I find that I am unhappy with where I am going and I know it's my fault. I suppose it started somewhere in high school. My mother wanted desperately for me to be successful (as all mothers do). She would suggest, from time to time, that I become a doctor or a scientist. I considered her words briefly. I thought of how nice it would be to have all the money I needed. I thought of how great it would be to provide all of the luxuries I could think of for my family. That is, I considered all this until my grades returned in Geometry, Physics, and Algebra II (which I only passed because I was "a good kid").
As you can imagine, this limited my choices, and I was left to decide between the soft sciences and the arts. Psychology, while interesting, was a little too perverted, history too boring, and political science sickening. My handwriting has always been poor and my drawings even worse. What, then, is a boy to do? Luckily, fate intervened, as she often does in stories like these, in the form of a creative writing teacher. On the last day of my senior year in high school she said to me, "You're insane if you don't go into a career in writing."
I shrugged off her advice as an errant compliment and kept on with my original career decision of becoming a computer programmer, which had always been a hobby of mine. After getting weeded by CS 101, and then not finding Print Journalism to my liking, I landed in the English major. Just another degenerate, forced into the amorphous degree that is barely one step above the General Studies major.
After coming to terms with where I was, I developed that artsy chip on my shoulder that broadcasts "I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it for the craft." I knew that all the others would work all their lives and I never would, because I enjoyed what I was learning and doing.
But now, four years later, I find myself caught in that same lie that I had been trying to get away from. That you can buy anything in this world for money. I had decided to get a PhD in Romantic Literature. I made a goal to get into a top school, I took a GRE prep course, and I bought books about grad school. In short, I was determined to become a highly respected and well paid Professor (an oxymoron though it may be). But while reading my books about grad school I became overwhelmed by the busywork, politicking, finagling, over-achieving, money, time, and overall ridiculousness of the process. So much so that it simply has made me question my own motivations. Basically, I had better be damn sure that this is what I want to do if I'm going to put myself through those things. I was overwhelmed by how emotionally and academically under-prepared I am for what I had planned to do.
And then to top it all off, the other day I was reading an essay by a top scholar in my chosen field and I found myself nauseated by what I was being forced to read. I tried to push away the thousand thoughts that assailed me to no avail. And after some further reflection on them, I cannot help but admit their validity. These were the questions and thoughts that swirled around my brain about my career choice, about me, and about the essay that sat in my lap:
- What is the point of all this "literary analysis," "scholarship," and "research" drivel?
- Who cares?
- Why is this scholar writing? Is it really to be read by an exclusive elitist crowd who label themselves intellectual? More often than not, essays come across as exercises in intellectual masturbation rather than creative analysis out of love for the works themselves. And these scholars are the people that we as students should aspire to become?
- Did this person plan on becoming a stuffy critic when they first began their career? For indeed, Academe has turned being a Professor of Literature into a glorified literary critic (and I mean that in the worst sense). With the rise of Formalism and the need to be taken seriously, scholars sacrificed their love of literature for a false sense of acceptance in the world of education. Though they may couch their criticism in terms of comparison, analysis, and literary jargon, the only thing that differentiates them from modern critics is that they cite other critcs that came before them and use MLA format. All while making new "discoveries" about the past.
- I wanted to ask this professor, what drew you into being an english major in the first place? Was it the critical essays your teachers made you read? Or was it the literature? Was it discussing eternal and enlightening truths buried in the novel or poem, or was it the political games and ass-kissing required to gain acceptance among your peers?
I'll admit that these questions are rigged, but I would be so bold as to say that 99% of students and professors would answer these questions in the same way. And this isn't a new thing to me, I've known all along that I would have to sacrifice some of my creativity, or pay the piper in order to become a teacher, but it isn't until recently that I have actually started questioning whether or not it's worth it.
No one becomes an english major because they like writing stuffy academic prose or because they appreciate the mazes of "educated" jargon and gobbledygook that pervade millions of books and essays. But as a result of the acceptance of wordy blather in the PhD community, English majors are slowly chastised and coerced into writing and thinking this way because Professors are seeking to clone themselves.
Consequently, I would also be so bold as to say that all English majors experience the "what the hell did I just read?" essay at least once. This is the essay that is so incomprehensible and try-hard that it ends up saying nothing at all in a very fancy way. Consider this passage from Mikhail Bakhtin:
"The strength and at the same time the limitations of such basic stylistic categories become apparent when such categories are seen as conditioned by specific historical destinies and by the task that an ideological discourse assumes. These categories arose from and were shaped by the historically "aktuell" forces at work in the verbal-ideological evolution of specific social groups; they comprised the theoretical express of actualizing forces that were in the process of creating a life for language."
I rest my case. He might be saying some wonderful and grand things, but the only people willing to take the time to unpack that mess are professors with nothing better to do, and no talent for actually "creating a life for language."
My point is that I am done pretending not to care about money while inserting myself into a career path simply for the money and not because I love it. At first, when nothing was at stake in the 100 and 200 level courses I had fun immersing myself in the literature. But now that things are more serious and I encounter more jaded professors trying to groom their students into literary cronies by grading them down for not being "like them," I find that I am unhappy. What I mean is that I am no longer graded on the originality or merit of my ideas, but on how well I conform to the rigors of the academic prose, "proper form," and that muddy term they label "scholarship." I could say the same thing that has been written a thousand times and still get an A if I make it dense enough.
Granted, there are professors out there who haven't lost the vision, and to those last few brave souls, I applaud you. What I guess I'm really saying is that I am going back to writing. Not for anyone else, or for money, but because I love it, I'm good at it, and it makes me happy. And if I must provide for a family, I'll do this.
[Keep Following. It's about to get all kinds of active up in hee.]
