Posts Tagged "MFA"
A Thousand Words or So to the Community College Bound
One of the lies we are told growing up is that if you study hard in high school, then you’ll make it to a big school and that school will be the key to your success. Not doing your work will get you a McDonald’s job. I have found this to be the adolescent equivalent of “keep making that face, and it will stick that way.”
Going to Mt. San Antonio Community College didn’t equal my failure. After completing the requirements, I applied and got into UCLA, Berkley, & UC Irvine. At the time UC Irvine was the one with the most impressive English program so I went there (Yes, better than UCLA). When I went there I ran into the salutatorian of my high school class who could only demand “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Although she never liked me, this wasn’t the reason for her outrage. She was pissed because throughout high school she acted the way she should have, and I didn’t. She had a GPA above 4.0 in high school. Mine was more like 3.0 (for an honors kid this was like having the GPA of an etch-a-sketch). Yet, there we were sharing the same prestige, in fact I saved about $50,000 for dicking around in high school. Isn’t there a bible story on this?
Reason 1: You can get the same degree with about half the debt. This will help, because your English degree from that top university won’t get you a decent job. It will just help you beat out people without degrees for crap jobs.
“You have a degree in the arts? Nice. Help Derpy with the art of loading this van, also she’s your boss.”
For me community college wasn’t a stumbling block, I knew this was a dangerous place where if I didn’t take things seriously, then I would never escape its publicly funded clutches. This caused me to stop looking at my GE’s as something in the way of my real academic pursuits. They became a means to an end.
“I have to take Intro to Friendship? When am I going to use that as a magic major?!”
It turns out that writers need to know more about the world than just writing. Otherwise they’re writers writing about writing. Although, I’ll admit, I find writing the most fun when I’m writing about writing or writers or writer problems, but sometimes it might be cool to write a piece about a marine biologist, or a piece that explores philosophical ideas, and I’m sure a course in chemistry didn’t hurt the writer of “Breaking Bad.”
“Hydrofluoric acid will eat anything but certain plastics? That’s neat and all, but when is this EVER going to turn up in my writing?” –Vince Gilligan (not really)
Reason 2: Community College is a death trap and the fear of it might make you actually study and learn things you can use in your writing.
When you transfer to a four year school you may notice a few changes. At UC Irvine I noticed that instead of being taught by an experienced adult with several publications and familiarity with the writing game, my instructors were replaced with grad students who were about my age and felt uncomfortable about the “Where have you been published?” question.
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“When I published my first poem there was this thing called ‘The Cold War.’”
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“Welcome to Creative Writing 101. I took this class 2 years ago, and will be supplying you with vague answers for the next 10 weeks. So let’s all pretend I know what I’m doing and not ask any tough questions.”
To be honest, I got lucky with most of my graduate instructors, most. Each of them offered me something new that has changed my views on writing forever, that includes the, um, less awesome TA’s.
But my community college mentor John Brantingham has done more to shape my views of writing than any other professor. In fact, he has probably shaped the fiction sections of “Writing Is Magic” more than any of my other professors.
Reason 3: Community college instructors tend to be more experienced teachers and writers (of course your own experience is subject to change).
Even if your counselor is like “Yeah, you totally took this class in community college!” there’s probably someone in the English department who is like “You’re going to have to take all your creative writing classes over again.”
So you will start again and you’ll listen to someone else talk about writing, but wait! This isn’t what a story is! This reading assignment doesn’t fit into what I was taught! Clearly I went to the wrong school! What’s Post-Modernism?! AAAAAH! THIS IS ALL WRONG!
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“Someone in workshop turned in a 25 page rambling about replacing the insides of a bee with bread. I had to write a critique about what I thought it meant and how to make it better, BUT I DIDN’T KNOOOOOOOW!” (image from “Rainbow Dash Presents”)
This is fine. You came from one school with one way of doing things, and you’re entering a new school with a new way of doing things. The changes can be dramatic or subtle. If you’re lucky it’s dramatic and intimidating. Your mind will have to figure some way to reconcile the aesthetics and find your own path. Take what works. Leave what doesn’t. Don’t forget what doesn’t work; just leave it alone. It might be a key ingredient to your writing later on. If you aren’t going through these growing pains, THAT’S when I would worry that I didn’t go to the right school – but then maybe you did.
You might find yourself being behind the other students who already get the house style. They’ve been here since they graduated high school. This is the only way they know how to think about writing. However, as you start to find your voice, you will be the one with the advantage and confidence.
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“Hey, I’m all for experimentation, but perhaps not having a main character until you reached the maximum allowable word count was not the best idea. No, Mrs. Buzzy was not a main character; she was a plot device. Oh, also adding a plot might help! But that’s just my opinion.”
They have only attended one writing program. By this point you have attended two. They are a product of their program, with all of its strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully, you’ve managed to fill in the holes of your new four year school with the strengths of your community college teachings.
By your final years, you might be one of the finest writers in your program. You might even give some of the MFA’s a run for their money. But don’t be discouraged if your colleagues can’t see it; when they go off to do their MFA, you will get reports back saying “Remember what you said in workshop? Well, my professor said the same thing!”
I’ve said things in a peer workshops which were laughed at, and I was brushed off as having silly theories about writing. I said the same thing at USC and my professor actually applauded (If I’m not nominated for a TED talk in the next 3 years, I’ll do a video on it here).
You see everything they’ve been told to think about writing they got from one source, probably the aesthetic styles of whoever runs the program. Since you are their peer, you’ll lack credibility to have new ideas brought in and respected by the ego-driven crowds. To say something that disagrees with the house style, no matter how flawed the house style is or how sound your reason is, they will think that it is you who doesn’t understand. So they will need someone of merit to tell them the same thing you did before they’ll listen. (Befriend those who are open-minded enough to listen to you; this will keep you sane.)
Reason 5: No creative writing program is perfect. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Already having a few creative writing classes from a different perspective will help you compensate for some of the weaknesses. If you didn’t go to community college, you’d have to wait until grad school to have this experience.
Although this was just my experience. Your experience may will vary. If you’ve gone through the community college system, feel free to comment on how it was like for you.