AS SEEN ON THE NYTIMES

The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s
By LAURA PAPPANO
Published: July 22, 2011


William Klein’s story may sound familiar to his fellow graduates. After earning his bachelor’s in history from the College at Brockport, he found himself living in his parents’ Buffalo home, working the same $7.25-an-hour waiter job he had in high school.

It wasn’t that there weren’t other jobs out there. It’s that they all seemed to want more education. Even tutoring at a for-profit learning center or leading tours at a historic site required a master’s. “It’s pretty apparent that with the degree I have right now, there are not too many jobs I would want to commit to,” Mr. Klein says.

So this fall, he will sharpen his marketability at Rutgers’ new master’s program in Jewish studies (think teaching, museums and fund-raising in the Jewish community). Jewish studies may not be the first thing that comes to mind as being the road to career advancement, and Mr. Klein is not sure exactly where the degree will lead him (he’d like to work for the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East). But he is sure of this: he needs a master’s. Browse professional job listings and it’s “bachelor’s required, master’s preferred.”

Call it credential inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master’s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.

“Several years ago it became very clear to us that master’s education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,” Dr. Stewart says. The sheen has come, in part, because the degrees are newly specific and utilitarian. These are not your general master’s in policy or administration. Even the M.B.A., observed one business school dean, “is kind of too broad in the current environment.” Now, you have the M.S. in supply chain management, and in managing mission-driven organizations. There’s an M.S. in skeletal and dental bioarchaeology, and an M.A. in learning and thinking.

The degree of the moment is the professional science master’s, or P.S.M., combining job-specific training with business skills. Where only a handful of programs existed a few years ago, there are now 239, with scores in development. Florida’s university system, for example, plans 28 by 2013, clustered in areas integral to the state’s economy, including simulation (yes, like Disney, but applied to fields like medicine and defense). And there could be many more, says Patricia J. Bishop, vice provost and dean of graduate studies at the University of Central Florida. “Who knows when we’ll be done?”

While many new master’s are in so-called STEM areas — science, technology, engineering and math — humanities departments, once allergic to applied degrees, are recognizing that not everyone is ivory tower-bound and are drafting credentials for résumé boosting.

“There is a trend toward thinking about professionalizing degrees,” acknowledges Carol B. Lynch, director of professional master’s programs at the Council of Graduate Schools. “At some point you need to get out of the library and out into the real world. If you are not giving people the skills to do that, we are not doing our job.”

This, she says, has led to master’s in public history (for work at a historical society or museum), in art (for managing galleries) and in music (for choir directors or the business side of music). Language departments are tweaking master’s degrees so graduates, with a portfolio of cultural knowledge and language skills, can land jobs with multinational companies.

So what’s going on here? Have jobs, as Dr. Stewart puts it, “skilled up”? Or have we lost the ability to figure things out without a syllabus? Or perhaps all this amped-up degree-getting just represents job market “signaling” — the economist A. Michael Spence’s Nobel-worthy notion that degrees are less valuable for what you learn than for broadcasting your go-get-’em qualities.

“There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,” says Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution, and that gives the master’s extra signaling power. “We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,” making a bachelor’s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers.

Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master’s is essential for job seekers to stand out — that, or a diploma from an elite undergraduate college, says Richard K. Vedder, professor of economics at Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

Not only are we developing “the overeducated American,” he says, but the cost is borne by the students getting those degrees. “The beneficiaries are the colleges and the employers,” he says. Employers get employees with more training (that they don’t pay for), and universities fill seats. In his own department, he says, a master’s in financial economics can be a “cash cow” because it draws on existing faculty (“we give them a little extra money to do an overload”) and they charge higher tuition than for undergraduate work. “We have incentives to want to do this,” he says. He calls the proliferation of master’s degrees evidence of “credentialing gone amok.” He says, “In 20 years, you’ll need a Ph.D. to be a janitor.”

Among the new breed of master’s, there are indeed ample fields, including construction management and fire science and administration, where job experience used to count more than book learning. Internships built into many of these degrees look suspiciously like old-fashioned on-the-job training.

Walter Stroupe, a retired police first lieutenant and chairman of the department of criminal justice at West Virginia State University, acknowledges that no one needs to get the new master’s degree in law enforcement administration the school is offering beginning this fall. In fact, he concedes, you don’t even need a college degree in West Virginia to become a police officer, typically the first step to positions as sheriff and police chief.

Still, Dr. Stroupe says, there are tricky issues in police work that deserve deeper discussion. “As a law enforcement officer, you can get tunnel vision and only see things from your perspective,” he says. “What does a police officer do when they go up to a car and someone is videotaping them on a cellphone?” The master’s experience, he hopes, will wrangle with such questions and “elevate the professionalism” among the police in the state.

These new degrees address a labor problem, adds David King, dean of graduate studies and research at the State University of New York at Oswego, and director of the Professional Science Master’s Program, which oversees P.S.M. degrees across the SUNY system.

“There are several million job vacancies in the country right now, but they don’t line up with skills,” he says. Each P.S.M. degree, he says, is developed with advisers from the very companies where students may someday work. “We are bringing the curriculum to the market, instead of expecting the market to come to us,” he says.

That’s why John McGloon, who manages the technical writing and “user experience” team at Welch Allyn, the medical device company, helped shape the master’s in human-computer interaction at Oswego. He says employers constantly fear hiring someone who lacks proper skills or doesn’t mesh. Having input may mean better job candidates. This summer, Mr. McGloon has three SUNY Oswego interns. “We plug them right into the team,” he says. “Not only can you gauge their training, you can judge the team fit, which is hard to do in an interview.”

While jobs at Welch Allyn may not require a master’s, the degree has been used as a sorting mechanism. After posting an opening for a technical writer, Mr. Mc- Gloon received “dozens and dozens” of résumés. Those in charge of hiring wondered where to start. “I said, ‘Half of our applicants have master’s. That’s our first cut.’ ”

Laura Georgianna, in charge of employee development at Welch Allyn, confirms that given two otherwise equal résumés, the master’s wins. A master’s degree “doesn’t guarantee that someone will be much more successful,” she says. “It says that this person is committed and dedicated to the work and has committed to the deep dive. It gives you further assurance that this is something they have thought about and want.”

The exposure to workplaces, and those doing the hiring, makes master’s programs appealing to students. “The networking has been unbelievable,” says Omar Holguin. His 2009 B.S. in engineering yielded only a job at a concrete mixing company. At the University of Texas, El Paso, which is offering a new master’s in construction management, he’s interning with a company doing work he’s actually interested in, on energy efficiency.

There may be logic in trying to better match higher education to labor needs, but Dr. Vedder is concerned by the shift of graduate work from intellectual pursuit to a skill-based “ticket to a vocation.” What’s happening to academic reflection? Must knowledge be demonstrable to be valuable?

The questions matter, not just to the world of jobs, but also to the world of ideas. Nancy Sinkoff, chairwoman of the Jewish studies department at Rutgers, says its master’s, which starts this fall, will position students for jobs but be about inquiry and deep learning.

“I would imagine in the museum world, I would want to hire someone with content,” she says hopefully. “To say, ‘I have a master’s in Jewish studies,’ what better credential to have when you are on the market?”

“This will make you more marketable,” she is convinced. “This is how we are selling it.”

Whether employers will intuit the value of a master’s in Jewish studies is unclear. The history department at the University of South Florida has learned that just because a content-rich syllabus includes applied skills (and internships) doesn’t mean students will be hired. “Right now, yes, it’s very hard to get a job” with a master’s in public history, says Rosalind J. Beiler, chairwoman of the history department, noting that the downturn hurt employers like museums and historical societies.

The university is revamping its master’s in public history, a field that interprets academic history for general audiences, to emphasize new-media skills in the hopes of yielding more job placements. “That is precisely the reason we are going in that direction,” she says.

“Digital humanities,” as this broad movement is called, is leading faculty members to seek fresh ways to make history more accessible and relevant in their teaching and research. A professor of Middle Eastern history, for example, has made podcasts of local Iraqi war veterans in a course on the history of Iraq.

It may be uncomfortable for academia to bend itself to the marketplace, but more institutions are trying.

In what could be a sign of things to come, the German department at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is proposing a Ph.D. aimed at professionals. Candidates, perhaps with an eye toward the European Union, would develop cultural understanding useful in international business and organizations. It would be time-limited to four years — not the current “12-year ticket to oblivion,” says John A. Stevenson, dean of the graduate school. And yes, it would include study abroad and internships.

Dr. Stevenson sees a model here that other humanities departments may want to emulate.

It does, however, prompt the question: Will the Ph.D. become the new master’s?

Laura Pappano is author of “Inside School Turnarounds: Urgent Hopes, Unfolding Stories.”

AS SEEN ON TANGENTIAL

What to Expect When You Leave College and Begin Working 9-5

1. You will, somehow, start eating at Subway all the time.

2. There will be a growing pains period when your friends constantly text you at 2 p.m. saying, “We’re at the beach! Come!” and you will sit and get disproportionately mad, thinking thoughts like, “Don’t they know I’m at work, wtf,” and “Who the hell is free at 2 p.m.?”

3. You will suddenly need to “buy stamps.”

4.Welcome to college loans. Despite the fact that your university job made you a piddly $400 per pay period and you now make significantly more, you will envy and be mystified by the days when you could afford $80 worth of art supplies/ shoes/ whatever per month.

5. You’ll get a little fat. Once you work full-time, you’re sitting at a desk 8-9 hours per day and guess what, there are free cookies and pies all the time. There just are.

6. Say a tearful goodbye to Regis and Kelly, or whatever guilty daytime TV you used to love but are too embarrassed to Tivo.

7. Slowly, you will start to become a normal person again. You will go to bed before midnight. You will wake up early and read the newspaper, no hangover in sight. You will join a gym and think about volunteering. You might even bike with your colleagues on the weekends.

8. Your friends will describe your clothing style on the weekends as “work appropriate, minus the sweater” and on the weekdays as “weekend clothes, covered up for work.”

9. Since most of your friends are either still in college/ bartending/ working in retail, the rest of your life does not quite match that of your settled down co-workers, who will inevitably find pictures of you mock kissing a girl in a pool while smoking and holding a beer, or find a tweet of you talking about your roommates doing acid.

10. You will be constantly sleep deprived. You’re still not sure how to not watch Netflix until 2 a.m., but you also become miraculously trained to wake up at 7 every morning. This also means that your weekends involve you waking up amongst party peers/ boyfriend, whoever and reading several magazines while everyone leisurely slumbers till 11.

-Becky Lang

AS SEEN ON THE ONION

New College Graduates To Be Cryogenically Frozen Until Job Market Improves


WASHINGTON—In a bold new measure intended to address unemployment among young professionals, lawmakers from across the political spectrum agreed on legislation Tuesday to subsidize the cryogenic freezing of recent college graduates until the job market recovers.

The bill, expected to swiftly pass in both houses, would facilitate the subzero preservation of any graduate of a two- or four-year educational institution. Sponsors of the initiative said that with the national unemployment rate at just under 10 percent, it only made sense for young job-seekers to temporarily enter a state of supercooled stasis.

"Finding employment is extremely difficult for today's college graduate," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said. "Our current economy offers few options for the millions of young men and women desperate to join the workforce."

"Were we to freeze these graduates at the height of vigor and ambition, however, there's a chance we could revive them during a more prosperous time," Hutchinson continued. "When the economy finally bounces back—10, 20, even 30 years from now—we'll have an entire generation thawed out and ready to contribute."

The Frozen For Their Future Act reportedly calls for the installation of thousands of cryogenic tanks at college commencement ceremonies around the country. Upon receiving their diplomas, newly minted graduates will immediately make their way to preservation stations where their hearts will be artificially stopped using electroshock or a potassium-salt solution. Once a graduate's blood is drained and replenished with an anti-crystallizing fluid, they will be submerged in liquid nitrogen, a process that will, in effect, put them into suspended animation until key sectors of the American economy such as real estate and information technology have rebounded.

According to Walter Reardon of the Cryonics Partnership Inc., it will be essential for the freezing procedure to be conducted as quickly as possible.

Enlarge Image

"Graduates will never be more primed to enter the workplace than at the exuberant moment they toss their caps in the air," said Reardon, who claimed that cryogenics was the only hope for an estimated two-thirds of the nation's students. "Wait even two days, and a graduate's brain will begin to show the effects of fretting about the dismal job market. Wait six months, and you might have a permanently cynical underachiever resigned to his position at a mall sunglasses kiosk."

"Frankly, that person might not even be worth bringing back," Reardon added.

Under the proposed guidelines of the legislation, frozen graduates would remain in storage at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius (minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit) until the unemployment rate fell to a more manageable 4.5 percent. All graduates would also be required to sign a waiver stating that they understood the risks involved, and that there was no guarantee the economy of the future would ever grow sufficiently to warrant their revival.

While acknowledging this danger, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who cosponsored the bill with Sen. Hutchison, said smaller subsets of graduates could be reanimated as needed if special circumstances created a demand for their skills.

"Let's say there's some sort of environmental crisis," Schumer said. "Well, we could selectively thaw students who majored in ecology or climatology and provide them with jobs. The same logic would apply if, say, 300 years from now a real-world application for people with philosophy degrees somehow arose."

Soon-to-be college graduates were divided about the pending legislation. While some expressed reluctance to induce their own clinical death, other students seemed content to postpone their job hunting for a while.

"Everyone I know is either unemployed or barely getting by," University of Illinois senior Kim Levesque said. "If they want to put me on ice until there are more jobs out there, that's totally fine with me. Not to mention the fact that I won't have to think about my student loans for a while."

When reached for comment, a spokesman for loan provider Sallie Mae said that educational loans taken out by graduates in cryogenic storage would continue to accrue interest indefinitely at 6.5 percent.

Self-Education:Take Back Control.

The title of my blog: "Where are we going?", once provoked this very specific image for me. It was meant to be a question to the many others whether or not of my generation, facing insurmountable debt, confusion, with little hope for the future they worked for. They feel cheated, lied to, when they climb the mountain of expectation only to find another abyss. One we were not at all prepared for.


Taking time to reflect, research, and study the "alternatives" I find that the title of my blog provokes a new image. The title questions not only the future of those in my situation, but is now a rhetorical question to the person no longer in the driver's seat. The one who steered us off course. We have lost control over our own education, and therefore control over what we can do with it.



I want to reach out to anyone who feels they have veered off course. Those who feel that they followed the rules but were still lead astray. Everyone, whether or not they feel they belong outside the confined walls of the education system, or those who still have faith in it. Both should recognize the benefits of being in control and continuing to learn and thrive. This was the advice given to me by author James Marcus Bach.

Take the next step and encourage it for people who aren't talented enough for conventional education. Then you might as well include everyone who is exactly the right amount of talent... The notion of "talent" with respect to conventional schooling is just circular logic: if someone thrives in that environment, then they are deemed to be "talented enough but not too talented." But this is a fallacy. It's not talent. It's FIT. Some people, regardless of whatever talents they may or may not have, are good fits for that system.



"Buccaneering" or Self-Education

Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar is his book, one that has pinpointed some serious issues in the education system and thankfully, offers solutions. One solution in particular: Take back control of your own education!

Bach became one of the youngest technical managers at Apple computer with less than a high school diploma. Is he a genius? Technically, but he no longer attends Mensa meetings. More on that later. The genius of the man is not measured in numbers necessarily. Despite his high IQ, he did "poorly" in grade school. He was depressed by being classified by numbers, and not challenged intellectually, and how however unintentionally, began to take control of what number he was designated.

He intentionally failed tests, he ignored his homework assignments. Was it because he didn't care about learning? No. Did he do nothing with his time? On the contrary. Bach spent his time building and programming the very first computers. He studied physics in his spare time---but was failing physics! "See that 49 in physics? Looks like a low score doesn't it? But I loved physics. I studied it at home... I taught myself how to use sliderule and calculated trajectories...but none of that was part of my schoolwork, so it didn't count." So why would a genius not be a good student?
Something he refers to as "mental mutiny". Your mind is free to accept or not accept, to grow or not grow. Refusal of homework, failing tests on purpose, etc., are a natural response to not being challenged, to being disinterested.

The topic of interest, frequently reoccurs in this blog, because the argument of it's necessity in education. As noted before, colleges feign interest in your interests. They create "fluff" courses so you can have fun and become a well-rounded person. Education should be fun, and make you a well-rounded person, yes, but not for a one-sided pay out. As addressed before, the school gets your money, and you get nothing in return. No marketable skills or even usable credits, just memories.
But interest IS a necessity to learning. The brain only retains what it deems necessary! A professor, a teacher, a counselor, even an employer may not deem it necessary, but your brain has.

Buccaneering is Unstoppable Curiosity

Beginning in grade school, we are taught various subjects, math, art, science, etc. Are we ever asked to make connections between these varying subjects? Most often they are distinct and separate. But learning connections between various subjects is key to understanding why learning is important. A child needs to learn at a very young age that all learning is important, if he or she is to retain any information, and to continue to believe that as an adult. At high school and even college age a student continues to be confronted with old information in a brand new context, and most often reacts to it in the very same way. It is only when someone teaches new connections, charts new territory, and braves the unknown,that students are interested. Imagine a professor who teaches that a literature major can and should be interested in astrophysics for _____ reason, and makes that reason exciting. Students will make the connection. The education system is caught up in the alternative, and you are caught up in the hypocritical dichotomy of "why are these classes required of me, if I am not SUPPOSED to even be interested in them?" Alternating the dynamics of doing things excites the mind. Learning the exact same things over and over does not. It only causes burn out, mental mutiny, and, worse, depression. So many young people are depressed by what they consider their lack of ability, simply because they do not coalesce to a system that has no designation for them. Are they slow, stupid? Are they just *too* "gifted"?

"Guaranteed Not Stupid"

As a member of Mensa, Bach was told having a high IQ meant simply that he was "guaranteed not stupid" and therefore should never again doubt his ability to learn. Shouldn't that be the designation for everyone? What makes this particular group so elite, if they can't even call themselves "smart"? IQ is just another number designation by a grade, only dictated by a test that means just a little as a 7th grade history exam. Test and homework grades, IQ and SAT scores are all supposed to be the building blocks of our prospective list of credentials. But what do these credentials mean? What again does a high school diploma signify if a genius cannot earn one? What then does a Bachelor's degree signify, if the person possessing it has no idea what to put it towards?

Bach says his book "isn't about school". In his email response to me, he even seemed to argue that there was nothing wrong with the system and with people who fit in with it. But he does point out that there is something wrong with how education is fundamentally presented. It is purely presented as "facts", in context of the classroom situation. Anyone who has ever really learned anything, did so through reflection, by partially teaching him/herself. A person learns by literally becoming a better person of their creation, influenced by the information presented. Education is construction and reconstruction of your mind, and as Bach says, “Education is the you that emerges from what you learn”

Taking Back Control

Self-education in this economy is necessary for success, but self-education is most often discouraged within the education system. In my own self-education, I came across this book and many others that are helping steer me in the right direction. One could say the only thing I really needed to learn in school was how to read, how to write, and how to check out a library book. Everything else was superfluous.

This however, is a list of invaluable information I gleaned just from Bach's book:

1. Education can only happen in an environment in which people feel respected, and that their learning is necessary. They need love and encouragement from their teachers to succeed, not by way of high marks, but by formulating a personality that comes from knowing things and the curiosity to know more.

2.In school, and even in the working environment, most often others succeed when they have a sense of uniquely belonging. They want to be apart of something, but they want to bring to that something their own unique contribution. This is necessary in the classroom to a student who wants to learn, but doesn't simply want to follow along in the textbook, and regurgitate facts. Think of a pack of wolves rather than a school of fish. We want children and adults who devour their own sought out information, not passive fish who glean what they "can".

3.Criticism and intimidation are not the same thing, but in the school system are hand-in-hand. Most people who are "bad" at science and math, say it is because they are intimidated by numbers. People who are "bad" readers say they are intimidated by words. Numbers shouldn't be threatening, and speed reading should be discouraged. Criticism should be healthy, and failure should be funny.

4. People should be encouraged to take pride in what they can uniquely do, which encourages them to be successful at it, and other things. They should be encouraged to learn outside of school, and for that learning to count.

5. Adults in the workforce need to enrich their lives by continuing to learn. Learning after college, in the workplace, should always happen! Experts know that being an expert means knowing who to ask. Create your own syllabus of books to study. Create a syllabus of questions to spark your curiosity. Don't ignore your curiosity. Learn, explore. Know that you are smart, and no matter what your vocation, become a professional intellectual.


As a graduate do you have all the information you need to succeed in the working world? Of course not, no one does. I especially do not, that is why I am continuing to learn, and doing so for free. I may not have the degree but I will know as much as someone who does. I am taking control of what I am learning. I am in the driver's seat again. Are you in the driver's seat of your education?

Next time: What does it mean to be "gifted"?

It's all relevant.

Testoster-Ruin - Hanna Rosin

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Economy fails College Graduates

Long week of 2 blogs.

So I have a long week ahead of me which gives me time to make three blogs!


One as you know will be called the Major and Minor problem, which should be up Sunday.

The other will be up Wednesday. It will be about my current occupation, it's pros and cons, and the like.

The last will be up that Friday. Not sure what it will be yet, so stay tuned.

In the meantime enjoy this video by The Specials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr2HTUlUrDo

It's quite fitting.

This is the very first official entry!

Welcome! This is the obligatory introduction post, so I hope it doesn't bore you to tears. Please don't cry. I decided last night in a haze of wine coolers, that it was about time that I started my own blog. As an aspiring writer (take that how you like) , I have had many "blogs" over the years, but none so public and accessible. As an intern for their summer college program, My 22 year old sister now has a vlog affiliated with Disney. I am so excited for her, but at the same time asking myself why I've been dragging my feet. I think the hardest part about getting started is figuring out what on earth to write about. As a creative writer (mostly) I usually just write about whatever comes to mind. I do have "ideas" I research and address, but it's not like "Ok I will spend the next 7 weeks, only writing about endangered species on the Galapagos islands".

I honestly don't think that would go so well. I think also that vlogs are easier than blogs. I might make a few of these vlogs. Doing them, and watching them I find they are much more freestyle and conversational, and the occasional "um" and "uh...what was I talking about, OH YEAH!" can come up, and is forgivable. Not entirely so when it comes to it's communicative cousin-the written word! I love writing, but my personality makes being in <---this little box--->, a bit confining. But we can do it! For we must be very careful when it comes to dangling participles and such! I am sure my audience here will be forgiving, still I assure you I will attempt to stay on task for most of the blog, with only the occasional tangent....Now, where was I....OH YEAH!

I want to give you a bit of an idea of what will be addressed on this blog. Here is a little outline of some of the things I will be writing about, both for my sake and yours.

Would you-could you be my neighbor?
1. Obligatory Intro Post- which we are in the middle of right now-- explains the purpose for the blog, outlines the blog's progress and may have a little bit about your fearless leader towards the end.

So what is this?

2. Well here we are at the most exciting part of the blog, finding out what on earth I will be writing about. Now are you getting an idea of what you will be dealing with here? This blog is called "Where are we going" for a reason. In this fabulous economy, many of us ranging from ages 22-30 have absolutely no idea what is in store for us in the future: monetarily, creatively, emotionally, and what have you. Part of the problem I have noticed is that time spent in college, an institution meant to get our career path on track, fails us, feeds us false information and honestly, doesn't really help us plan for our futures at all.

Can I use keyboard?


3. Part of the struggle here, I find is mostly with the job market, having very little need for what our generation was encouraged to pursue. Those of us encouraged to pursue the arts, whether in writing, music, drama, or the fine arts, well "we just should have known better". I find that my peers who sucked it up and went after jobs in either in engineering or computers, are doing quite well for themselves, but they are miserable and not doing what they really want to do. And what are the colleges teaching us? What are we gaining from our education that we really take with us? Are we on the right track to doing what we want to do?

So what is that?

4. Last night I was talking to my mother about my plan this summer: to scope out all of the publishing houses in the area, find one that's hiring and get my big ole' foot in the door.
Her quick answer back was: "I thought you wanted to be a teacher?"
I did want to be a teacher. Unfortunately it seemed the closer I got to my goal, the more things I had to do to even be considered a real teacher. As a result, I've subbed, I've been an assistant, I've even worked privately as a nanny, and a tutor. This past year I've had experience doing some very rewarding things, but all the while feeling like I wasn't doing what I really want to do. I realized that many of us aren't really doing what we want to do, but we're doing something like it, so we can lie to ourselves and say we made it, or we are just doing what pays the bills, and squeaking in our true passion only as a hobby. I realized, I do enjoy teaching, but I want to write. If I do teach, I only want to teach others to do the same. I want to teach valuable and necessary things, but only in the field of writing. I want writing to be valuable and necessary again. My ultimate goal is to get my MFA, and get published, and possibly put to use the teaching experience I would get from the fellowship. In the meantime the only contacts, and work I want to be doing is for the publishing industry. I'm done selling myself short, and getting paid to get apple sauce in my hair and on my pants.

But, aren't children our future?
5. Remember when we were the future? Well what happened to that? I'm not quite sure. I feel like we were only given a small window of time to get ourselves together, before the younger generation competitively steamrolled us out of their way. I mean good for them and all, but hey!
Some of us aren't even in our 30's yet, and we're supposed to give up? No fair! No tag-backsies, ya little bastards!

...

The rest of the ideas will eventually flow out I assure you.

Until then I am going to start on these ideas. I will attempt to keep myself well informed, and do all of the research necessary to not sound like a noob. You are in good hands here.

Stay tuned for next weeks blog:

Let's do the post-graduate limbo