Merlin

[sapphire]

On the plus side, I ended up reading a TON of books I would never have picked up had I not been reading them for classes. And, for the most part, they were really good. A few duds, but that's hard to avoid. I had a several classes (at least one per semester, I think) that assigned a novel per week, so even though I wasn't reading for pleasure, I was reading even more than I did in high school. And I read a lot in high school.

And now that I'm out of college, I get to work through the massive list of books that I accumulated when I didn't have time to read them.

[A Mask Among Many]

That's really cool. I want classes like that, though the only college my parents will help pay for is a liberal arts college in California. (fixed curriculum, great books program. great books meaning Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes... etc.)

Your major was creative writing, right?

[sapphire]

Yeah, I got lucky. I found a creative writing program and my parents were willing to pay for it. I think my favorite classes - excluding fiction studio my junior year and my independent study senior year - were the ones where we explored different genres. Although the Shakespeare class was awesome, too.

The Great Books do have their high points, even if they can be a bit hard to get through. Are you definitely planning to go there? What would your major be? That kind of curriculum does sound pretty interesting to me, actually.

[A Mask Among Many]

What's fiction studio? And independent study what?

I'm almost definitely planning to because my older sister is there for her freshman year this year, and she loves it so far. I trust her judgement, and both my parents went there, so I've heard a lot of good stuff about it.

Since they offer a fixed curriculum, there's only one major: Bachelor of the Arts. However, because all the classes are designed to teach you to think, not to teach you to learn, and because they are diverse, it's apparently pretty simple to branch out from there.

Also, there's the money thing...

[sapphire]

Heh, sorry. I'm used to talking about classes with other people who have taken them.
Fiction studio is basically the core writing class in the program. "Studio" is all four years - freshman and sophomore years are split between fiction and poetry, and junior and senior years we focused on one or the other. I chose fiction, because if there is anything I've learned about my own writing, it is that I am not a poet.
For independent study, I basically outlined my own course and got a professor to supervise. I used it to work on my thesis, which was the first third of my novel, because none of the thesis professors knew anything about fantasy. I met with the professor every other week for the year, and we basically just talked about my novel and how to make it better for an hour.
Not coincidentally, I asked my junior fiction studio professor to be my independent study adviser. He was the best teacher I've ever had.


That sounds like a really great school. Learning how to think is invaluable. My brother was in a similar environment for college, though his wasn't a fixed curriculum. His school was very focused on philosophy. Lots of requirements in that and literature for any major. (I almost went there, too, but they don't have a writing program.)
Any idea what you'd do with that degree, once you have it? In a perfect world, what job would you have?

[the Red Dragon]

Saph, that sounds like my dream college. I would love to major in creative writing (even though I'll probably get something more practical ) and the fiction studio thing sounds AWESOME. What college is that?

[A Mask Among Many]

.... Daham, that sounds like heaven.

In a perfect world, I would probably become an adviser to someone important because of a connection I had made earlier in life. What will most likely happen, though, is that I'll become a writer on the side of doing something involving meeting with people. The thinking thing will help me with both though.

Also, my sister is going to set me up with the marketing division of a high-end cutlery company that she worked for for about six months. They pay pretty well, so that should help with a bunch of college money.

That's kind of like what would happen except it wouldn't be my sister, but someone I had known from before.

[sapphire]

I went to Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. It's basically an art school with a writing program, so the environment is very, very artsy and liberal. I loved it. Of course, there were less ideal classes, too, and professors that I really didn't like all that much, but most of the classes were amazing and I learned a ton, about both writing and myself.
I could have gotten a more practical degree somewhere else. I'd probably have a decent job by now if I had. But I don't regret going there, and I never will. Of course, that's just me. There is a lot to be said for a practical degree.

Hey, being able to work with people is no small thing, Mask. Part of my problem finding a job is that I really don't want to work too much with people - I'd prefer a job where I can just shut myself away and work for hours.
Working in marketing will be excellent for your work experience - there are definitely marketing jobs out there for writers, it's just tricky to get one without any experience.

(I love how this conversation has gone from TV to college and jobs.)

[A Mask Among Many]

Is that liberal in the classical sense or the modern, political sense?

I'd like to think that the environment of Thomas Aquinas in California is a similar environment. A place to grow and discover more about the world and yourself. At least, I hope it is, cause if it's not, then I don't what I'm going to be doing with four years of my life...

I actually enjoy working with people. For the most part, I like one-on-one things similar to what I'll be doing with the cutlery company. I really don't like sitting in a room working for hours on end. (Like, school is my worst nightmare work-wise, though I really enjoy learning, so that helps.) Also, the writing will probably be something liken to a side-project once I get out of college. Admittedly, it will be a rather large side-project that I'm going to voraciously cultivate, but that's beside the point. The point is that although it would probably be cool to write in my job, that's not the ideal, because I don't like writing papers but fiction I can do.

(I think this is one of the most interesting conversations we've had, personally.)

[sapphire]

Liberal in both senses. (There were some more conservative-minded political types on campus, but they mostly kept quiet. They were surrounded.)

I think college in general is really about discovering yourself, cliche as that may sound. I didn't see it while I was there, but when I compare who I was as a freshman and who I became by the time I'd hit senior year? I'm practically a different person. I'm so much more confident now, it's crazy.

See, I don't mind working with people, but it's not something I want to do every day. And I've learned that, if I must work with people, it really needs to be face to face. I work in a call center right now, and it's absolutely awful. Not just because people feel more free to yell at you when they can't see you, but because even the good calls are so impersonal. If I'm working with people, there has to be at least a slight connection there.
I'd much rather be alone, or maybe with a small team of others working on similar things. It's not even that I'm not comfortable with people, I just find it exhausting and would rather spend most of my time alone.

Writing as a side project is probably a good way to go. That's how most writers seem to operate, anyway. My fiction writing is all on the side, of course, but I'd love to write as a regular job, too, even if I end up writing advertising copy for a while to get experience to do something more fun. (Of course, this is partly because writing is one of the few things I can say that I both love and am good at and trained for. I'd love to work with animals, too, but my allergies throw a bit of a roadblock up there.)

So for this marketing job, what will you be doing? I'm curious now.

(This is an excellent conversation. I'm enjoying it, too.)