What's a good degree for a writer?

What's a good degree for a writer?
Don't say "English."

English literature, philosophy or history

Women & Gender Studies

history, sociology, anthropology, foreign languages, hospitality

Physics (esp astrophysics), forensic science, and journalism.

Speaking as an English PhD, I'd say classics, if you must study and major in something.

Philosophy.

None. You can learn to write just fine by yourself. English Degrees teach you to be a better reader but not a better writer. You will get thru B.A. to M.A. in English and not have to write a single story.

I find my English degree more useful as an actor than as a writer. Being an actor who can actually READ into storytelling vs. the rest of prettyfaced idiots is like playing the game with esp. As a writer I had to teach myself basic shit like writing a script for a kids cartoon or funny skits for church.

creative writing and gender studies majors are literally a waste of money and I love humanities academia.

Computer Science with a focus in programming, maybe swing a business minor.

You'll need something to keep you employed cozily enough to afford writing a fuck ton while not starving.

classics/modern and medieval languages

makes sure theres a language in there somewhere

Astrophysics major here, cannot say it has helped reading or writing. I do my lit related stuff independently and know no other physics majors that have much of an interest in it. But personally I've found a good balance and love how it's going

>as an actor

post discarded.

Mathematics and philosophy, try to minor in physics and english.

THE STREETS YO

>tfw sort of regret studying my English major

I'm in 2nd year at the moment and I would rather switch and do History, but I only have 1 more year left and I finish the degree, plus I'd rather not stress my parents out by looking like a dropout.

>mathematics
>physics
I want this meme to end.

37.0 Celcius

I also studied astrophysics. The only impact it had on my writing was leaving me with no time for it.

how is this a meme?, I study both and they are beautiful, they give you solid footing for all other academic endeavors

Physics here
It leaves me with little time to write during term but it definitely gives me a lot to think about. I enjoy the perspective it gives me.

Whatever leads to making a shitton of money.

t. 25 years old History major who would choose something else if given the chance to relive this life.

>this guy gets it

What's 1+1?
Don't say "2."

This was me a few years ago. Just wait until you hit the job market.

It's going to get worse before it gets better, user, but if you keep working hard it will get better.

Pretty much everything is bound to either improve your knowhow directly (like English, languages, sociology, psychology, law, philosophy) or give you external experience with the world which is just as important.

What's the point of your writing if you're not struggling from meal to meal?

1+1.

How many great writers were struggling from meal to meal?

2

There is no more patrician degree than Math/Physics with a philosophy minor. Pure math is the king of academia while philosophy is the king of humanities. Plus 300k+ starting isn't bad.

English Lit, of course, followed by Philosophy.

This guy is an idiot. As if being a better reader doesn't make you a better author.

I swear, every time I see this, the number gets comically higher.

Journalism here. It teaches some stuff that are basically the opposite of good literature, but it also makes you practice researching and going out pretty well.
The ideal is to get more than one degree, though. I'm thinking Mathematics later.

Economics

Well, "great" is a pretty subjective term but tons of decent writers died poor and were rather poor during their life, be it Poe, Orwell or Melville. (it'd be silly to list them all) Others like Tolstoi gave they wealth up, Nabokov was struggling financially before he moved to US of A and of course Cervantes who jumped from middle class to slavery and saw everything in-between.

Goethe is probably one of the very few good writers who never had any struggle in his life.

I studied math before changing to psychology and boys let this meme end. It's basicly wanking and jerking to abstract proofs. Sure it might have its own beauty. But it has nothing to do with the mode of experience.

>English PHD

Weird way of spelling starbucks barista 2bh

>anything I dislike is a meme

what's with the people saying Classics? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to learn and study literature that is more modern and relatable, because that's the stuff that you're going to writing like? I get how the Greeks are good and important, but it just seems like a Classic major would be studying stuff that is so far detached from modern lit that it wouldn't be as helpful for your progress as a writer.

So you know deep Greek and Latin etymology and can come up with ebin spell and character names for your billion dollar YA fiction franchise. :^)

wtf I hate the Greeks now

but seriously if you really believe this then it might be time for me to call life quits

can one of you great intellectuals explain this to me instead of just telling me to kill myself

Wow does this guy get it
>in CS program rn
>fun, made friends, dick around
>write shit
Although getting a womens studies minor

in my view, studying classics develops the same basic tools as an english lit class, namely close reading, critical thinking, analysis of texts, and linguistics. what seperates classics from an english degree is the heavy emphasis on historical context and language. learning latin is an intellectual exercise in itself, allowing you to learn any romance language easily, likewise with ancient greek, a plethora of linguistic possibilities are at your fingertips.

so, why not take history/english double major and study, say, german or french in your spare time? good question. that's a great choice as well. classics is a succinct and broad study of the society where western civilization as a whole has been birthed. it's been said that philosophy is no more than a set of footnotes to plato, but this rings true for more than just one discipline. what about socrates, aristotle, sophocles, aeschylus, aristophanes, thucydides, herodotus, homer, virgil, seneca, ovid, etc.? these are among the giants of western literature/academia and to some extent, birthed many of the sciences as we know them. aristotle didn't just study metaphysics, he studied biology, physics, the world around him.

in short, classics are a sort of multi-faceted study of a group of societies known to live in what's called 'classical antiquity.'

it's really fun as well. there are more reasons to do it, but probably just as many as for philosophy, history, sociology, law etc... shakespeare, joyce, and dostoy wouldn't exist without these guys, if that's any consolation.