School is cool. [I think.]

In light of the recent discussions as posed in class, I feel that it is the right time in the semester to transition from straight, academic prose and offer up some sort of self-reflection. While I acknowledge that this blog is meant to focus my studies of the Politics of Information, as addressed by the perimeters of the class, I would like to briefly suspend that in favor of an informal response to the question “why am I in grad school?”

Last week in class, we were transitioning from Harvey’s Rebel Cities to Aronowitz’s The Knowledge Factory and the topic quickly turned to the reasoning behind attending an institution of higher learning, especially given that higher degrees no longer (if they did at all) guarantee a job placement after school. I must confess that I did not participate in the class discussion as much as I normally do because of the topic at hand. I do not really know why I choose to undertake a Masters degree, especially one in English. My undergrad is in Creative Writing, and I had all but decided to pursue the Rhetoric and Composition option at the grad level, but now I’m unsure. This all comes down to the fact that I do not want to teach. While most my classmates and friends in the department have reservations about teaching, for the most part they understand and acknowledge that teaching in any capacity most often comes with a degree in English. I guess the problem really comes down to exactly what I want to do for a professional career, and how a Creative Writing and Rhetoric & Composition background will help me.

Aronowitz states that “education is successful when the student identifies with social and cultural authorities” (1). But I have to question if this is really what I’m undertaking by pursuing a higher degree. I choose English because I’ve always been interested in reading, literature, and writing, and I choose Rhetoric and Composition because – truthfully – I did not want to do the Creative Writing or the Literature option. Furthermore, theory both excites and intimidates me, as I said in the first post to this blog at the beginning of the semester. But now, having almost finished my first semester in grad school, I have to wonder if I’m really gaining anything from it. I confess I do not like the idea of being forced to identity with “social and cultural authorities.” I like to think that I am gaining something more than just base cultural information and a place in the social and economic structure of the world. Or rather, I hope that at the end of all of this – school, academic life, everything – that I will gain something worthwhile to me.