My father was a poet. This confused people. They would ask, "What do you do?" He would reply, "I'm a poet." There would then be a stunned pause followed by, "No, I mean what do you do for a living."

But that's what he did. He eeked out the occasional poem, gave poetry readings, sold casette tapes of his work. "Poetry is performance art", he'd tell me. Once in a while he had a stack of thin poetry booklets for sale.

It will probably not surprise anyone to learn that the man was quite poor for most of his life. You can't really make a living doing that. My hat is off to him for trying, though.

(Just to be clear, he didn't raise me, so don't worry that he was starving a wife and kids. No, he was just starving himself, as it were.)

==================================
Check out my webcomic, if you're so inclined.

I just recently switched my major from journalism to english--for all the usual Tortured Artist reasons, aside from the fact that I would absolutely lower myself to write for television given the chance--and these stories are always very heartening.

To a man, everyone I told about my major switch said: well, teaching English will be fun!

Just as a sidenote, Unpunctuate and the Mewling Beatniks are scheduled as the opening number for Daisybuchananstock this weekend.

1. U of M alum here--class of '94. I have been back over the years, mainly to watch women's gymnastics meets. And yes, they do get terribly younger every year. I'm just wondering what will happen when I start viewing them as so young they ought to be in elementary school.

2. I majored in geology at the U of M. And got a master's in planetary science down in Arizona (ASU). My current career? Working in the Registrar's Office at *Hunhaha* University. (Sorry, frog in my throat there. *grin*) So no, my major has nothing to do with my career. But it was definitely fun while it lasted. I'd still like nothing better than to be a professional student.

3. I'm having enough problems filling my Livejournal weblog. What am I supposed to do with another one?! *gulp*

4. I'm wondering...is there some property in the shape of a triangle that allows it to predict weather? Or could an anthropomorphic rhomboid do it as well?

5. I definitely encourage everyone to read Shamusyoung's webcomic. It's hilarious!

That's what I thought. I lasted two years.

Maybe my problem was that I didn't want to teach about Literature. I just wanted to teach people how to write. In college you're only allowed to do that in the freshman courses; everything from that point on is Lit Crit.

But here's the thing about Freshman Composition: nobody wants to learn it. Every student sitting in English 101 is there because they were required to take it. None of them actually want to be there. They view the course as an unavoidable chore that they just have to endure, doing only as much work as they have to in order to pass. They intend to forget the whole class as soon as it's over, so you can forget about getting them to pay attention and actually learn anything.

The worst ones are the kids who made straight As in high school English. They believe they already know everything about writing, and they resent even being required to take your class. Because they have nothing to learn from you, they'll skip as many classes as they can, pay no attention when they do show up, and expect an automatic A anyway. When they don't get it, they become outraged and complain to the department head. Obviously you are out to get them! There's no other possible explanation; they made straight As in high school!

I can teach any interested and motivated person how to write. But I cannot teach sullen, resentful people who are determined not to learn anything. After two years of banging my head against that wall, I quit and became a technical writer.

My so-called career was subordinate to my husband's (who moved us around a lot) because he made more money, and I didn't fancy raising our children without a father. My bachelor's degree was in management of human resources, but I never really held a human resource job, unless you count the years I spent verifying the eligibility of masters and PhD candidates to graduate from a mediocre Midwestern university (and fighting with them when they weren't eligible, even though they insisted they were). Before that, it was mostly highly portable clerical work, with some fascinating forays into manufacturing and the service sector.

Eventually I got myself a Master of Humanities degree, not because I thought it would earn me anything, but because I have an artistic bent. So it was for my own personal satisfaction (and because, as a university employee, it was practically free). Now I'm retired, and I must say, I enjoy that far more than I ever did work.

I got my degree in Electrical Engineering at UW-Madison. During graduation (a riotous affair that had over 100 champagne corks aimed at the speakers; a student speaker who foolishly talked about "the last 4 years" only to be interrupted by the entire engineering school yelling "5 years!"; and a Domino's pizza guy walking across the field at Camp Randall to deliver a pizza during the ceremony) the engineer majors chanted at the business majors "We got jobs!" and the business majors replying "Yeah, but we'll be your boss!" I figured I was set. But. 27 interviews and 28 rejection letters later (one company didn't want me so badly they sent two letters. sigh) nothing.

But I got a job working with computers. Not designing, but managing them. And with an 8 yr exception, I have been doing IT stuff since the early 80s. Have never been employed doing actual electrical engineering work. And actually quite like it.

Still, I tell my kids that if you choose to go to get a liberals arts degree, plan on grad school or finding a fantastic internship otherwise you will be searching the want ads.

Two old jokes from Gallagher (pre-watermelons):
- If you get Sociology and Math degrees, you can get a job counting people.
- If you get an English degree, you can open a Poem-Repair shop.

Heck yeah, I'd say an English major is far more valuable in corporate marketing and communications than, say, a *totally* useless Marketing or PR major. (Why people spend money to go to college and then major in Marketing -- a field that absolutely does not at any level from self employment to major corporation require even one formal Marketing class -- I don't understand).

But as an English major who was also an Economics major, I've worked in fields that required writing about business. In fact I recently HIRED an English major to write market research.

Actually that was a disaster, a mistake soon remedied. So i suspect it's true that many people who'd major in English these days are probably dim bulbs. I was, you know, an exception....

1999 graduate (5 year plan, but I have my co-op as an excuse), graduated with a BS in electrical engineering. And yes, I remain an electrical engineer, which isn't unusual in engineering, especially for '90s graduates.

Being a marching band geek -- er, alumnus -- I still have a lot of nostalgia for the place, but every time I go back there I have that "those kids can't be in college yet" reaction. And for a few years, I was having the "where the heck did that building come from?" reaction, too.

I am a UMD grad with a Bachelor degree in Teaching Math. Of course, after student teaching, I decided I didn't want to deal with classroom management krep, so I didn't go into teaching. (I did spend a lot of my "free time" tutoring, though.) So, I worked full-time in student records, first at UMD then at a high school in St Paul.

Finally, 9 years after graduation, I am using my degree for full-time work. I work for a publishing company that makes many of the tests kids take for No Child Left Behind. Some of my work involves writing and editing math questions, including coming up with realistic wrong answers.

U of M '80, Electrical Engineering.

I had a sort of love hate relationship with the U. I liked the idea of the U much better than the reality. The U is a cloistered environment and after a while I really missed the real world. I was glad to leave and don't miss it a bit.

I saw a movie at the Oak Street Cinema a couple weeks ago. The look of the area was a bit different than 30 years ago but the feel was exactly the same.

I was 26 when I started at the U after having spent seven years in the Navy. I found all the students impossibly young and foolish, even then. I seldom visit the campus and when I do it brings back no great memories. I do remember the Vali (Lileks' former employer, is it still there?) as a place with decent food but very slow service. You didn't go there if you were in a hurry.

Heck with poets . . .trying being a Art History major. Ouch.

Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to finish my degree before starting a career. I ran out of money at USC at the end of the first year. No burger joint would hire me. The only job that I could get was writing telemetry software for the Voyager mission at JPL. (Yes, a bit weird.)

Eventually, I was making enough money as a software engineer that I could afford to go back to school and get a degree, but my wife and I kidded each other that it was taking us so long that we would get each other hearing aids and canes as graduation presents.

Along the way, I changed my major from computer science to history, because I was working 50+ hours a week in an electronics startup, and the last thing I wanted was to write more code for classes. So my BA is in History (Computer Science minor--there's a weird combo for you), earned at the age of 34, and my MA is in History, earned at the age of 38.

Does this help much, career-wise? Not really. It does mean that when I wrote a book length document at one of my employers, one of the users proclaimed that it was the most entertaining technical document in the telecommunications industry!

And I do write history books. Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2007) is available in bookstores near you!

I have a degree in Geology from the U of Mn. Doing Meteorology right now. Most of my Geology classmates from back then are in non-Geology professions right now. None of them are pole dancers, thankfully.

My best friend in college, and still my best friend on this planet, and I were both English majors (early 70s).

I'm a web developer. He owns a construction company.

Neither of us became rich -n- famous but I don't think we ever expected that. But we occasionally talk about our paths in life, and how those paths were illuminated by the arts and artists we were exposed to, and how we were taught to never quit reading, to never quit visiting museums, and never quit attending concerts.

The other day the son of a friend of mine, and his girlfriend, were passing through town. I took them to lunch as a treat (and of course to report back to his father how they looked!). It was a bookshop/cafe and someone had left a copy of the poems of Robert Frost on the table. As I replaced it on the shelf I quoted from memory one of my favorite Frost poems. My guests were stunned - not only for this display of literacy by a guy they knew only as a web geek, but by the fact that in Ye Olde Dayes, people were expected to memorize poems before getting the sheepskin.

I have a BS in Mathematics; I'm a software developer. Am I using my degree? Not really, but my wife and I also homeschool our children; overseeing my oldest kids' precalculus class has certainly brought back some memories. So even if you don't make a living off your degree you may still be using it.

My degree's in Philosophy and I work as a computer programmer. Naturally, being a philosopher, I'm fully prepared to argue that they're actually very closely related. :D

There's a reason the opening song in the musical "Avenue Q" is "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?". It's one of the more quintessential questions in life.

...I'm a geek. My major was in computer science (BYU, 1978), and all my work since then has been related to my major. Even when I was a full-time writer (and, yes, I did support myself full-time just writing), it was writing about technology.

Curiously, my senior (high school) English teacher, Ms. Barton, wanted me to become an English major. It was not to be. ..bruce..

I guess. BA in Math with a concentration in CS (it was a small school w/o a CS degree), and I am now a Software Engineer. But that is more due to my MS in CS than my BA (though, to be fair, the BA was fine prep for the MS...) My first job out of college was as a USAF Air Craft / Munitions Maintenance Officer, and the extent of my math was counting that we had the right number of bombs/planes.

I wonder how many successful poets/writers were actually English majors? I suspect less than one would think.

Poetry _critics_ i dont doubt are close to 100% English grads. I've always felt that writing and English courses at the university level prepared you to judge the work of others far more than to produce anything of relevance yourself.

This makes sense to me. Knowing how to write is secondary. Having something worthwhile to write about is far more important, and i dont think you get a lot of that slouching about campus. Of course slouching about the beach bars in Cuba is something else entirely, that I approve of.

Would you believe that despite majoring in Art and English Lit, I have actually used BOTH of my majors? My first job out of college was doing graphic design. Albeit not in a particularly fun/creative way. But still - that was where the focus of the art degree was (as much as 2 classes in an area can be called a "focus"), so it definitely counts. After a few years doing that I lost my job to downsizing....oops....and was rehired by the same company several months later as a proofreader. And now after doing the proofreading thing far longer than I intended to, I've come full circle and have a fun new job where my title is "typesetter," but my actual tasks are almost identical to the graphic design job. And now, I'm geeky enough that I enjoy NOT having the pressure to be creative for a living, and just have fun playing with Quark.

Incidentally, my brother majored in Political Science. When he was first looking for work, I tried to convince him he should start up a lab for doing political experiments. Of course, Jesse Ventura was governor at the time, so you could argue that everything happening at the capital was a political experiment....

Graduated with a degree in finance in 1990. Bounced around for 7 years trying to put that college education to work. In that time I was a(n): ESL teacher, bookstore manager, management consultant, phone collector, car emissions tester, bookstore manager, factory worker, ditch digger, and entrepreneur. They all sucked as jobs but eventually I found my niche as a merchant mariner.

These days I enjoy living under a bridge and dressing like a hobo. My daily commute takes about 2 minutes and the view from my office is always changing. I'll never go back on the beach.

I have a Master's in English and taught the dreaded ENG 101 for two years as a put-upon teaching assistant. (Ironically, I enjoyed the teaching part of my grad school experience more than the academic part.)

My first few jobs out of school made no use of my degree, but eventually I stumbled into the magazine publishing world, and things improved from there . . . until I jumped ship to become a "communications specialist" in the higher-paying health insurance industry. Not recommended! Fortunately, I was laid off by insurance companies twice in 18 months and took the hint.

Now I make the majority of my income as a freelance editor and writer -- and as a course developer for the U of M.

Jugglernaut

harmony * grace * compassion

I have a BA with a double major in Russian language and Soviet Area studies from a small liberal arts college. I lived in Leningrad, Russia for almost two years.

After graduation I worked at whatever I could find, janitor, cab driver, movie theater manager, etc. And I ended up a mainframe consultant (currently trapped in Dallas, TX).

I've never earned a dime from my college studies, but I have zero regrets. I met and married the love of my life at a metro station in Leningrad.

International Relations '84. Went and became a Naval officer for 12 years, since Ronnie Reagan was the only guy hiring then. I always joked that I was working in International Relations - the big stick end.

Now I earn my bread and cheese by managing, programing and fixing computers. One son already spent some time at the U and the next one starts this fall.

I still remember James' Daily column about locking himself out of his Pacer.

I graduated from the US Air Force Academy with a degree in Foreign Area Studies and minors in Spanish and Philosophy. I finished my commitment to the Air Force and now work in a Nuclear Power Plant.

I won't say my degree is completely useless, but the European Union and Plato don't figure into my job as much as one might think.

All in all it was a great experience and I doubt I would change anything, but if I had to do it over I might pay more attention in the engineering classes.

Theoretical Math major (Oberlin, OH), but computer programmer most of my life when I wasn't being a foreign missionary (now there is a politically incorrect job!)

> I met and married the love of my life at a metro station in Leningrad.

I've got to ask: You got married in a metro station?

I know this is tangentially related to the above, but I just have to vent. 23 years ago, my sophomore-year high school English teacher (Mrs P.v.M) decided to spend the entire semester on The Great Gatsby.

January to June. All Gatsby, All the Time.
No Richard Wright's "Black Boy "; no Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"; no other books that the rest of the sophomore class read.

Just The Great Gatsby.

That's why there was a muffled scream when a read "Daisy Buchanan's dock" and why everything momentarily turned green.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

BS in Geography and not using my degree, except for the big smile I get when the topic comes up on those bar video trivia games.

Currently a Facilities Manager in an urban school district outside of MN.

An advisor once said, 'a degree is like a union card - it shows you can stick out a 4+ year task and get you in the door.'

I received a BA in Biology in the 80's and ended up starting a career at an amusement park. After 10 years, the amusement biz and I parted ways (don't ask). After bouncing around, I decided to go to law school, a small time night school.

With amazing luck I ended up getting hired as a paralegal at a high end patent law firm and I used my bio degree to get my self register at the US patent office. After some 15 years I was finally going to use my science degree. My firm then transferred me to the electrical & engineering department, so much for biology.

I am very happy with electrical/mechanical and I work with nice people, frankly the guys over in the biotech part of the firm are like a disfunctional family, some even nuts.

La Vita è bella.

BA in theater, MBA, MFA in motion picture production. Working in flight test for a major aerospace company. So, not much overlap there.

I graduated in 2000 with a Bachelors in History from Southern Illinois U. and immediately proceeded to my first job, a fast-paced job dealing with both electronic and non-electronic money transactions regarding commodities transfers. Yes, I was a convenience store clerk. Then I got into the fast-paced world of customer service for a few years, answering phone calls on anything from a specific company's health benefits to "Oprah said I got money coming to me so where is it?" Now I work for the state board of elections in an unassuming and mild-mannered Midwestern locale. Only now am I using my History degree to go through scads of electronic and microfiche files to pinpoint exactly when and where Park Board Councillor So-and-So got X number of dollars from Shady Acres Tree Farm, put all the data into a meaningful form, and send reports to my supervisors to help determine the validity of various complaints.

Oddly enough, all my time spent studying how to navigate through all the nooks and crannies of the bureaucracy of Imperial China has paid off in navigating through my state's similarly tortuous bureaucracy. I've also been asked to figure out the effect of certain policies based on the historical precedents of similar policies in other states, requiring a lot of research and writing.

My B.A in History is now going to help springboard me into a Masters Degree, though in a field more related to our state's public policy than my original degree.

The pay may not be so good, but at least you remind us all of what we aspire to be in our hearts - poets - those who live with our hearts. I'm an english major as well, and while my major may not be specifically applicable to my real estate career, I seem to be one of the few within an unlaiden swallow flight who can scrounge together a proper business letter. So, I got that goin' for me, which is nice. Great post! - And, as for me, I'll never forget the light on Daisy Buchanan's dock. As for calculus . . .

I actually went to what was then called Moorhead State and is now an alphabet soup, but I *thought* about transferring to the U. Does that count?

I was a Mass Communications major with a concentration in advertising. I dropped out a few credits shy of graduation, took a couple of quarters to regroup, and went back to school for an associate's degree in computer programming. I finished up my Mass Comm degree at the same time just because a 4-year degree seems to open some nice doors, but I've worked as a software developer since I graduated in '92. My Mass Comm degree has mostly been used to write my blog (the advertising concentration allows me to appreciate the fine ads on other people's blogs). Yes, it's a very expensive blog, especially given the quality.

My thought is that yes, college was about preparing for a career and the work world, but mostly it was about learning how to live and make friends, and it was a last hurrah before the real world smacked me in the face.

The friends I made at Moorhead State are to this day the best friends I ever had, and I host a reunion of about half a dozen of them every year. They keep showing up, so I keep inviting them to the next one. I suppose that will come to an end at some point, but I hope like hell it doesn't.

I don't think I'm using my journalism degree so much as my journalism degree is using me.

- 9 months at a daily paper

- 10 months at a weekly paper

- 2 years editing technical manuals

- 3 years writing for IT trade publications

- 2 years as managing editor for said IT trade publications

- Currently writing again for said IT trade publications as well as managing editor for IT trade newsletters

The comments on this blog have me smiling ear to ear. It is amazing how life unfolds, usually in most unexpected ways.

Since graduating from UMD in '03 I've worked as a windsurfing technician, a kiteboarding salesman, a snowboarding instructor, a wilderness guide, a web support specialist, a web designer, a freelance web developer, and a marketing director.

I spent my first two years in college as a jazz studies major, and after consulting with a favorite local writer (thanks, James!) I switched to my own custom-built major in New Media Writing, a mix of journalism, English, composition, writing, communication and design.

Creating my own major at UMD was probably the best thing I ever did, and I feel like I've made a pretty good effort putting it to use. That said, a severe case of wanderlust keeps my methods of employ from becoming stagnant or predictable.

BS in Chemistry (WWU, '89) and I'm now a chemist for the Feds. Never planned or thought about what I'd do after college, just stumbled into a job that happened to match my major. Funny how things work out, isn't it?
=J=

Good post today. I was a math major, went on and got a Ph.D. in it, and since then have done a wide variety of medium- and high-tech jobs whose common factor was being able to make sense out of lots of data. The actual courses I took were not important (except for the courses which taught me how to program computers); the ability to think rigorously and objectively which I developed was extremely important.

In the old days, an English major would also have needed to learn valuable thinking skills (the level of rigor being less than that of a math major, but still substantial, and the ability to conceptualize being possibly greater), but nowadays a major in English or other humanistic subjects at most schools will not demand any analytical skill, because the professors are now too lazy and shoddily trained to be comfortable with rigor and objectivity themselves. This downward trend has progressed far enough that more than a generation will be required to recover.

I doubled in English Lit and Fine Art. (Hey, Ms Wallflower, we must have been in the same classes! heh) I think my rationale was that I would write novels then... paint the cover illustration? I don't really know.

Now, except for blogging and sometimes drawing something to post in my blog, those degrees haven't been put to much use. I figure that once the kids are grown and gone I can use the down time to finally write that novel.
~Fae
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-:¦:- Bling Blog -:¦:-

Graduated May 1982 from Indiana University with a degree in Computer Science and a commission in the US Air Force. IU was basically a liberal arts school -- I remember the College of Arts and Sciences, I think, published some info about who had jobs coming straight out of school...basically the only undergrads that had jobs were the Comp Sci majors and the ROTC graduates, so I had both boxes checked.

I was a bit of an oddity among my fellow Comp Sci majors: my verbal scores were higher than my math scores on all the standardized tests, but I figured out in high school that non-tech degrees were not job magnets, and computers were the next big thing.

Amazingly enough I got to use my Comp Sci skills immediately -- but I had to learn an ancient (even in 1982) language (JOVIAL) to do it. The Air Force was short of programmers, and they were taking anyone who had a "technical" degree -- defined as two semesters of calculus -- and sending them to computer school at Keesler AFB. We had a number of somewhat bewildered brand new programmers wandering around my unit who were actually biology and business majors who happened to have something more than algebra in their transcripts.

The programming was fun, but of course as an officer I had to lead and manage, so I only got about four years of real programmer and analyst time, then on to instructing, managing systems, buying systems (helped spend several million dollars - fun!), diverging off into other areas (NBC Defense! no, not the televesion network) etc. Programming for the AWACS radar plane and developing and buying GPS equipment were the most fun, tho.

That degree and my commission got me a 22 year career and an retirement check every month, so it worked out pretty well.

elb

My degrees: Bachelor's in music education, Master's in MuEd as well, but with an emphasis in jazz studies.

What I do now: Teach private music lessons and direct some jazz ensembles at a local community college. So yeah, my degree worked out. :-)

The one thing I didn't do in my original plan was become a high school band director, for which I'm ever thankful. I have a lot of respect for what they do, but I realized after a while that it wasn't my thing--the paperwork, dealing directly with public school administrators, and especially working with a marching band. Once I found out that you could teach your own instrument during the school day as a full-time job, I was all over that.

But a lot of my classmates took a different path; of the 150-some-odd (and yes, many of us were odd) people who started with me as freshmen in the MuEd program, only about 12 of us graduated with that degree in the normal five years.

My favorite example of someone who took a circuitous path to his eventual career was a friend of mine who started as a trumpet player majoring in MuEd. During school, he got a job as a lifeguard at a local waterpark, then worked his way up to lifeguard supervisor and, eventually, operations manager of the entire park.

Now he's a minister. Never did teach a single music class, so far as I know.

Some people used to give me (mostly good-natured) grief about not having a "real" major in college, just as some do now about not having a "real" job. But I love what I do, and that's the most important thing.

I am a Theology major from the University of St. Thomas.

I work in computers.

I paid for college with the GI Bill. In the Army I was in electronic warfare.

As I said, I work in computers.

See, I have yet to find a job listed searching for a person capable of solving the Problem of Evil *and* a substitution cipher!

As a grad of the U (87-91)with a degree in Biology, I can't say it was much better. I was told I could get lucky and end up washing glassware for chemists. I remember Ken Keller's President's Mansion Debacle, the giant classrooms with TV monitors for those in the back, the frustrating paper-only registration process, and of course, Committment to Focus. It's still a sprawling, unfocused mess of a state school, as far as I've heard. Although they do have the new, online registration process that is a big improvement. I don't give to my Alumni Association for two reasons: I never felt connected to the place, and I toured the new Alumni Center which was part of some 1 billion dollar investment. Very snazzy, but it sort of underlined the fact that they don't need my money.

Well, I just graduated a couple weeks ago... and no, I won't be using my (biology) degree, despite a couple years of fairly intensive research experience.

I'm heading to law school.

And no, I don't plan on pursuing a legal field that will use my biology degree either.

Still, I don't regret the major, besides the massive hit Organic Chem had on my GPA. It was interesting and fairly applicable to general life (both in terms of the actual knowledge I acquired and in terms of the method of study/analysis the major required).

And the winner for The Most Useless Degree Ever is...

B.A. in Theatre! Yay!!!

Thank you, thank you very much!

I just wish someone had told me...

Although, I dated a guy with a degree in - really - ballet lighting.

But I decided late in my PhD program that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life teaching at a university. I ended up being ABD.

I did, however, enjoy editing, preparing a text for publication, research, and writing about what I'd learned, and eventually I fell sideways into technical writing.

Tech writing involves learning about a technical subject quickly and then explaining it in actual English (given that the source material was written in Engineerese or Marketingese).

Spanish has come into the picture only once, when I was asked to write a user manual, then translate it into Spanish. Were it not for WordReference.com, I'd never have known the correct terminology for "logging in" or "invoicing."

It was also helpful to have learned to use the MLA Style Guide; I was able to translate that insistence on precision to other types of style guides that clients requested.

But I do understand the despair one feels after leaving college, perusing the want ads, and realizing that all those years of education had left me with no detectable, marketable skills. It took several years of low-paying jobs (and a little nepotism) before I found my niche.

CLA wasn't always the College of Lower Ambition.

IT + low GPA didn't always = CLA.

However, thanks to the pointless left wing totalitarians that have debased the scholarship in most CLA departments, the degree is more or less useless. Sadly, as an Alumnus, there seems to be no stopping it. Note that even in "sacred" grad school the U can't keep anything but Law in the top 20 of anything. Even the MBA program can't get anywhere despite $1B. Never mind even the (alleged) Football team, Basketball team, etc.

The U was at one time an unquestioned leader in Physics, Chemistry, History, Econ, and Medicine. It turns out that an institution can only take about 30 years of incompetent leftist rule before becoming pointless. Does it really require more tax dollars? Or a sharpening of focus?

The big anniversary is coming up at the U (if any of you bother to read the Alum junk mail). Anybody want to march on Johnston Hall and give the leadership what-for? Didn't think so.

You want your kids to graduate in 4 years? Do what everybody else has been doing: send them to St. Thomas.

C'mon James...do what's right for you country! Mock the U! Annie's Parlour and the Valli are long gone! Replaced by Disney-fied simulacrum of gentrified gastro-pubs! We need the Dinkytown of Al's Breakfast. Rise!

you can't even make this stuff up.

here's the U of MN approach to excellence for all to see:

University of Minnesota Parking and Transportation Services named as parking organization of the year

Contacts: Mary Sienko, Parking and Transportation Services, (612) 626-5828

Patty Mattern, University News Service, (612) 624-2801

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL ( 6/13/2007 ) -- University of Minnesota Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) has been named as the 2007 International Parking Institute (IPI) Parking Organization of the Year. In its inaugural year, this international award is granted to the organization that best exemplifies excellence in overall parking operations. PTS shares this year's honor with the City of Houston.

link:
http://www1.umn.edu/umnnews/news_details.php?release=070613_3368&page=NS

Sauces I Have Known and Loved.

Blogsauce was just one of many condiments available to the sophisticated gourmand of yore. Who knew the mid-century was so ... well ... saucy?

Well, at the selective New England school I attended, there weren't many "preprofessional" majors offered outside of Engineering or Computer Science. I thought I might be a CS major at first, but found it boring to work on debugging programs, then I considered Chemistry but hated the lab work. I eventually settled on English as a compromise between History and Philosophy. If I had gone on the job market right after college, I might have had a successful time of it--despite the English major--as a good many of my classmates did, but instead I opted for graduate school in English, and I ended up going all the way for a PhD. By the time I finished that, I discovered that as far as nonacademic employers were concerned, having a PhD in English was definitely a liability, but somehow I got a job working as a research analyst at a nonprofit, and despite a year and a half off for teaching at a small college, I still do research and writing work in the nonprofit sector today. I can't really complain about how things have worked out.

In the beginning, I started out with an Associates in Science, predominently in chemistry. Then came a Bachelor's degree in Pastoral Ministries. Afterward, I completed a Bachelor's degree in Organizational Management.

So what do I actually do for a living? I build space hardware for use on military satellites.

I earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering from a Midwestern Lutheran university in the mid-90s. I've been--surprise--a software engineer ever since.

Big mistake.

If I was 18 again, I'd major in Literature, or Elementary Education, or Pre-Colombian Religions, or ANYTHING that doesn't scare the living daylights out of every straight man in the Midwest. I can't get a second date without lying about my job.

Kinda funny that I went into a field because I'd be able to support myself, and that's the reason I'm my sole support. At least, it would be funny if it was someone else. :)

UM '79 with a doublemager in AEM and ME, at least that's what the paper said. The real major was crew, and since I immediately went into the Navy after graduation, I'd have to say I that did get some use. I've been back to campus a few times to marvel at the new buildings I've helped pay for, and still enjoy the place.

...every problem starts to look like a nail. My degree is in Advertising. ("Marketing Communications," to be exact.) Never worked a day in the field. Instead, I somehow ended up planning museum exhibits, which I describe as... big ads for science, or history, or art, or whatever.

If you can't apply what you learned in college to a wide variety of contexts, then you didn't really learn very much in college, did you? College isn't where you learn a trade; college is where you learn how to think. What you think about between the ages of 18 and 22 isn't very important. (No kidding.) But learning how to think -- that comes in handy in all sorts of ways later on.

My degree is in Computer Science, currently unemployed (so I guess it doesn't matter what my degree is in). I was both lucky and unlucky enough to land a research position at a national lab as a Bachelor's degree - lucky in that is VERY uncommon and unlucky as in I am now over qualified for every industry job I apply for (regardless of the field) and under qualified for any research (just a BS). If I went back for my PhD I would be in my mid 40's by the time I got out at best.

Eh, I'll get something eventually, most likely in the tech industry, it just hurts in the short term. If not then I'm not too far off biting the bullet and making a go at a computer repair business (there are enough full offices about I think I can make a living installing and maintaining some of the more complex systems as there are still not many companies that do that). In the end there is always my parents business, but I *really* do not want to be a land surveyor - summers in East Tennessee are *HOT*.

As for English - the problem is that I can do it. I do not mean spelling and grammar (as I can not - I'm dyslexic and am dang lucky I learned to adapt enough to get where I am now), but in general knowledge and ability at critical thinking. I can go to any college out there and look at a thesis from 50 years ago - I can not follow them too well. They show a HUGE depth and breadth of knowledge of literature. I can then go to the dissertations and follow - and probably even write - the majority of the ones in the last decade or so. That's sad, really sad, as outside of SciFi and Fantasy I tend to dislike literature and avoid wherever possible (I do, however, read every bit of scifi and fantasy I can get my hands on).

I've known a few true talents in Literature and I always felt sorry for them. They could go out, have a 4.0 GPA all the way through graduate school and still be one of the masses. In fact, with the current requirements a 4.0 doesn't cut it. You need to have done extra-curricular work that bumps your GPA above 4.0 for the top tier English lit schools even though that work has absolutely nothing to do with how talented you are.

I graduated with a BA in English from Iowa State, class of 76 (on the five year plan). I've been a CNC machinist for twenty eight years in job shops and aerospace factories. (I can remember using cams and wire tape recorders to cut parts, which makes me just junior to Methuselah in the CNC world.) Loved being an English major and a college student in the good years-before disco and Politically Correctness Commissars came on the scene. James Joyce, Raymond Chandler and Chaucer were among my favorites.

I, being thick as a brick, did not realize I had no marketable skills until just before graduation. So I kept on machining until I could figure out an alternative career path.

I haven't found one, as yet.
JD

I graduated with an English degree from a Jesuit institution in 1974, a year marked by recession and an impossible job market. Once I began working I noticed the one skill most people never acquire is how to communicate. Public speaking is an opportunity to display sweaty armpits and writing for others a chance to demonstrate illiteracy. There are few careers that do not depend on being able to explain what you're doing or what someone else ought to do. I've never regretted my major because it was the key to a long mediocre career.

I eventually became an international relations adviser which may only prove that if you want something, the universe will conspire to provide it.

I majored in journalism at UWEC (not far from the U of M!). About halfway through the requirements for that major, I realized what a huge mistake it was (I was, I discovered, a creative writer, plus I was much too conservative to ever consider writing straight news for a major daily). I kept the major, as I had too much time invested in it to ditch it (my parents would have had a bird if I had switched majors my junior year!), but added an English minor.

Now? After being a stay-at-home mom for quite some time, I worked a series of clerical jobs in the 1990's, part-time at first, to get some experience in the business world. Eventually found my way into what has become my chosen field, marketing. I perform data analysis and project work, and manage a few products for our company, too.

I agree with many others who have stated that what you study in college really doesn't matter; it matters that you graduate, which demonstrates stick-to-it-iveness, and that you learn decent people and communication skills. The only regret I have is that I never took a stats class in college. That? Would have been helpful for me. I am the go-to person in our office when it comes to spelling words and editing documents. And I'm pretty confident that I have read more books in my lifetime than the rest of my department combined, so I can initiate small-talk on just about any subject with clients and vendors.