What's the point of a literature degree?

What's the point of a literature degree?

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Expertise within the field of literature, presumably.

What's the point in anything?

>get into debt
>make the same amount of money than people without college degrees makes
>get less writing knowledge than someone with creative writing courses

Getting to sniff the buttholes of hot grills

>get into debt
>being a burger

laughing at your life desu

just b yourself

there's not money in writing.

I can read good.

You can be hired by the President to analyze Shakespeare plays.

I know this may be hard for your American mind to grasp, but some people go to university for reasons other than learning how to sell their labor for the maximum amount of money

to work at a literature store

Academics

You become a better reader, a better writer, develop analytical and communication skills, and get a broad sense about the development of literature.

t. proud English degree holder

LOL
American minds are shaped by the BEST UNIVERSITIES in all creation.
I'll tell you a secret; they're not sour at all.
Let me know when your 3rd world country's GDP exceeds the Ivies' endowment.

Because all the courses are dominated by qts

That's why I'm applying for literature

I go to an Ivy, I'm majoring in classics, and I'm pursuing writing...

To become a better person than you, and to know it.

>being a literal commie

Can confirm, recent grad, English department was awesome.

Is English department really full of QTs?
I'm looking for a new major and am making my choice solely based on maximum amount of QTs DO NOT FUCK WITH ME about this

I majored in English, now I do IT stuff for the NSA. You can go anywhere with that English degree, its all a matter of how well you write your resume.

...

Which one desu? I'm trying to complete my MBA at wharton

>reading archived usenet exchange from 1996 between two people
>one of them is a huge asshole who has a signature the size of a baby's head declaring that he's a literature phd candidate at princeton
>other one is very nice and has no signature
>google them both
>no-signature guy is an accomplished novelist and public figure
>can't find the other guy
>google "otherguy" "princeton"
>get a twitter account whose description says "Former PhD candidate at Princeton. Currently a software designer."
>former phd candidate, not even phd
>he's ABD, didn't even finish
>20 years later and he's still leading his introductions with "I almost had a PhD from Princeton, I tell ya!" while working on the frontend of a tranny feeldo distributor's payroll software

GOD

PUNISHES

FAGGOTS

Is there a problem? Everything in my post is true. If you have questions, please ask---though I cannot tell you confidential information about my job.

/thread

>Best universities in all creation
Implying there has ever come anything out of ivy near to the level of sophistication of L'ecole normale supérieure and Freie Universität.

What's your career now and how does it relate to your English degree?

Guess who makes more.

Best universities would help you understand that a debt-based economy is going to end soon.
They would also be researching alternatives. But let me guess, Americans have tunnel-vision and only think about making mad dosh.

>Hear Americans complain about 15% tax rate
>Meanwhile I'm paying upwards of 40%
At least I went to university for free, along with 80% of the population. Isn't it great that my bachelor's degree is worth less than a American high school diploma?

There is no point. That's literally the definition of a e s t h e t i c s

To tell others that you have a literature degree.

The line that is being finished with it.

Not him, but I do editing at a court reporting firm with my English degree. Lots of opportunity for advancement, good pay. I went to school to learn not to make money, but an English degree is more useful than alot of other humanities programs.

>some people go to university for reasons other than learning how to sell their labor for the maximum amount of money
The majority of people just go to university because it's what everyone they know does/did and they're too young to think for themselves

This. I had a friend who wasn't a bright guy and clearly wasn't cut out for higher education after high school. He was really good at working with wood and steel, but everyone else was going to college, and it's just kinda culturally expected in America. So he goes to our local community college instead of trade school, does fine in his shop classes, but is completely incapable of doing math, English, science, etc. So he wastes a few thousand dollars, a couple of years, and I'm sure it's tough to have to accept that you just aren't very smart.

There are way too many people forced into higher education by cultural expectations. It screws them, and it lessens the value of a college education.

I know this is a German poster because only Germans are stupid and prideful enough to name one of their own universities as a great contender to American ones without even mentioning Oxbridge or St. Andrew's. Even the French aren't that stupid.

I have no idea why the German people are so resentful towards everyone west of them.

blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=7263

Pretty accurate. My parents more or less forced me to go to university because if it didn't I would end up 'digging ditches and framing houses for a living'. The funniest part is that they had no money for me either, so I had go into debt.
The only reason I actually went was because I wanted to leave home. Eventually I dropped out, but now I'm back in school and several years behind people my age or younger.

Now my cousin, who completed a 1 year certificate at 18, frames houses works construction for the time being and already makes more money than me and has a car and long time girlfriend.

Really makes you think

trade jobs are really a safe path for most dumb people.

humanities are simply the chosen path for very few people to make a name for themselves, but for most people it means poverty unless they make a bigger effort than other degrees.

STEM is a harder initially degree, but easier in the long run.

humanities are the long term plan run and are the hardest of all.

I would only study lit if I was planning to apply for a JD after I finish undergrad.

>Muh enjoyment.
>Still collecting NEETbux at 30 because you can't find relevant work.

??????????????????????????????????/

You know what's disgusting? the government doesn't tell you trade jobs exist, it pushes your average Joe towards academic studies instead of saying "You know you can earn $20/hour bricklaying right?".

wouldn't an average literature student write better young adult or romance or any popular fiction and make dosh?

or is a matter of pride.

never understood how can you make not money off popular fiction genres with a literature degree.

are most of you retarded?

that's why I tell every user on my taco chan to become a trade worker, is like a secret knowledge I must pass to those dumb kids asking how they make money.

People don't read. Even the norms who read YA crap are 1 percent of the population

I got one so I could work on the English language, develop my ideas, and learn from books.

except that romance fiction is the most profitable of all genres.

>RomFic
>Not virtually identical and now integrated into YA

Or are you talking about old ladies?

dunno, those genres considered garbage by this board.

look at harry potter by example.

That's what I'm song. Even the insufferable normies who read stuff like Harry Potter, make up like 1% of the population. The vast, VAST majority of people don't read a word that isn't an advertisement.

nope retard, we're not talking about the vast majority of the population, fucking dumbass.

It doesn't matter if 99% people doesn't read because that's not weird, is the norm.

I don't know what we're talking about them. I thought you we saying that there's money in writing YA fiction, which was the case not long ago, but isn't anymore. And that's ignoring the fact that getting picked up is a dart throw.

Look, every year there's a new bestseller or a book that sells millions.

I'm just asking why a literature student isn't capable of writing a YA hit or a fantasy sci fi hit or even romance hit.

It doesn't matter if books don't sell, that's the norm, not something weird.

I have a degree in English Literature. I wrote poetry and novels in my spare time. Software developer by day. It's not such a bad life, though I frequently wish I had just focused on my art and ignored my career.

I don't know, I work in /gd/ but lit degree made me who I am and I regret nothing.

Basically made me a faggot desu.

Also, I'm working on lit PhD currently. Somebody please end my misery.

Yeah, ONE, book sells millions. And serious Veeky Forums students are crippled by pride to write something legitimate which inevitably goes unnoticed

I agree.

How old are you?

I'm thinking of quitting my steady job and focusing on my writing for a couple of months at least full-time and then finding a part-time job after that.

every year there's bestsellers user, and more than one.

most lit students are too fixed on a narrow view of a false dichotomy between making something popular and making something off quality.

in their minds it seems that you can't write a bestseller hit without also making off quality.

will never understood this hipster mentality, it also happens in music and other arts.

>Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's bad!

I hate this. Yeah, the statement is technically correct, but writing something with popularity as the main concern means that quality is not the main concern

mozart never wrote a single piece that wasn't a comission.

I never understand why money and quality are opossite.

have you seen spielberg movies?
highly technical masterpieces that are still extremelly popular.

it's a false dichotomy.

>Spielberg
>Masterpieces

I don't think we can have this conversation.

They don't realize that 90% of published authors are paid on commission after their first book.

give me a single technical reason why his movies aren't good.

It's the best comercial director in history.
Just like madona and mickael jackson are also geniuses of pop music.

Kant argued that aesthetics deals with activities (e.g. Literature) that are pursued for their own sake and not for some practical purpose

>give me a single technical reason why his movies aren't good.

sentimental bullshit, just because a movie made u cry doesn't mean it's "good"

See what you did? You just flipped the script from "Being popular doesn't make X bag" to "Being popular automatically makes X good"

this is mostly true

except I chose a soft trade that fits into non of those categories - Journalism

I'm enjoying it thus far except the class that I'm in is the least competitive and lowest scoring group my school has ever seen, so I've become a big fish in a small pond and it won't help me in the real world when everyone will be 100x better

I'm also having worsening anxiety now that my work is starting to get online attached to my name. "what if im actually really bad at this?" is something I think about every day. It seems to a require a 24/7 amount of effort and with the advent of the information age you have to be a personality as well as journalist, which now involves several streams of knowledge

>give me a single technical reason why his movies aren't good.
he's a purely techical director who seems to believe that of all the stages of producing a film, the screenplayis the only one where there should be room for artistic expression

my argument is that being popular and having quality is not on opposite ends.

there's plenty of popular art with extreme quality, by example the nine symphony of beethoven being used all over in tv comercials.

jounalism is dead, move to youtube, make a youtube channel about politics, start a patreon.

old media is dead at this point.

Alex jhones have two times the youtuber subscriber mark of CNN.

I mean, how many people actually listen to Beethovens 9th because they enjoy it musically?

is the most popular piece of classical and academical music ever, retard.

Yeah, in advertisements. How many people, if you asked them what they listen to in their free time, would actually say Beethoven. Virtually none, And putting virtually on that instead of literally is being generous

>Academical
>Calls someone else a retard

typical uncultured American, probably one of the SK posters and thinks ACDC is enjoyable
in Europe I have met total bros who have classical on their iphones, I made friends with a total piece of eurotrash because he was playing Smetana and I could hear it on his iphone. I slept with a girl a week ago who had a piece of chopin's music on her piano

To study literature.
American universities are garbage actually, they're just overfunded.

I listen to Stravinsky and Bartok, but that's not the point. The point is that it isn't popular music

>Be American
>study philosophy at uni
>have entire undergrad program paid for by scholarships plus a little extra to have a refund each semester
>mfw I get a small check each semester for going to school
Now the tricky part is sorting that out with grad school.

Journalism will never be dead, it's just changing and this is what I meant about multiple streams of knowledge

They're teaching us about producing and editing video, podcasts, radio news, interactive info graphics, computer based research, social media bullshit, running websites, community news, broadcast news, writing, etc.

What you're suggesting is people move away from real journalism toward opinion based content. Just because this is the trend does not mean it's right and it does not mean we should just let it happen. Fake news is bigger than ever and that's a fucking problem and it's mostly because people don't care or would just rather be surrounded by opinions they already agree with. Everyone thinks they can be a journalist but forget about things like journalistic quality and integrity and just produce weak click bait

But you are right in the sense that making your own youtube news channel could lead to popularity, it just won't lead to a regular paycheck

>academical

"overfunded" has nothing to do with anything, there is no reason or connection to the point you're trying to make.

Most major serious literary critics come from American and British universities, however, so maybe you just have a shit opinion.

Its funny how little a European degree mattes even in Europe compared to an American one, with the exception of grand écoles and British schools.

Pretty sure Veeky Forums draws disproportionately from the UK.

Americans are ignorant af when it comes to anything humanities related, even the wealthy kids who graduate from the Ivies.

>Most major serious literary critics come from American and British universities, however, so maybe you just have a shit opinion.
Not because of merit.

Stop stroking your ego.

popularity does not inhere in the music itself but in its degree of reification, the degree to which its self has been replaced before our ears with the fabulated shell of value—the degree to which it had passed from object to commodity.

If you have to brag about how "cultured" you are then you probably aren't "cultured".

...

Fuck off Adorno

I'm 45

I'm not thinking of quitting or going part time. I'm comfortable with the art I'm making and the balance I have in my life.

It's so easy to get distracted from your art. It was very easy to slide into a career and a domestic life that takes time away from your dream. Living alone and being a bitter loser writer doesn't make you great. But I would have been a better writer had I done nothing else.

Still writing though. Still making the art I want to make.

If you aren't published you aren't shit. Art is nothing without an audience other than yourself and your friends / family. You may as well be jerking off into a Martini glass and sprinkling some jimmies on it and then drinking it down dressed in that slutty outfit you ordered on Amazon that one time when the homosexual impulses became too strong to resist.

>creative writing

that's not a very Idealistic thing to say, user

STEM isn't any easier in the long run. You need to constantly keep up to date, which means studying for the rest of your life. It's definitely not for everyone, but that's why those degrees tend to pay so well.