Military, jail, travel, it doesn't matter, they don't equal or trump what one can learn in a university. They are different experiences. In my experience and value system, a college education is very high up there on the list of important things in life. You don't value it as high, that's your business. I can only tell you what value I assign a university education. Travel experience is pretty high up there as well. I don't like being told what to do, so military and jail are waaaay down the list of things to experience before I die.
I honestly don't think I do to be honest. We have student tuition fees that have meant a lot of my poor friends have been able to go to university. Having money often means you come from a background that puts more emphasis on education, and friends who have wealthier parents tend to instruct their children at a young age on how to write academically and to enjoy close-reading and developing reading skills - that certainly is the case from what I've seen. But if you are smart, you can pick up those skills yourself along the way.
Having gone to the U when taxes were supporting education, then paying for the U when my son went and those tax subsidies had been steadily withdrawn, I blame the anti-government-funding-anything movement. It's a swing of the US political pendulum into bad territory and I do hope it swings back soon or that belief only the rich kids go to college is going to become permanently established.
Hmmm. I'm not sure. My parents always acted like they were better than my friends' parents (when I was at school) because my parents bought their own house, didn't drink alcohol, had a car each, double glazing, central heating, continental quilts and a caravan at a time when the majority of my friends and their parents lived in cold council houses, with threadbare carpets, peeling 70's wallpaper and were still using blankets and sheets yet at least 70% of those friends managed to get to university and are now accountants, teachers and the like. Maybe that was the problem, maybe they spent it all on having a nice house and things and when I left school, they had nothing left. Actually, mother had a brother who got the opportunity to go through university. He's actually very brainy and passed with flying colours but mother (who was older than him) was told by her parents that she wasn't allowed to go to university because she was a stupid girl who should be taught how to be a good home-maker :-O
Maybe I'm not as thick as I was told? I've proven that by publishing two books. When I can afford it, I will get that degree (in anything) Or I will get a piece of vellum, a bit of ribbon, my cousin's cap and gown and a photographer who can keep a secret - shhh ...
You are clearly not! Hahaha, you might need to fake a certificate too. But you can always go as a mature student if you want to, and it's never too late. There was a guy on my BA degree, he was about 68, retired and did it because he could and was interested.
I went to university in Canada (freshman in 1979 - I'm that old! Punk rock was still new and all the Beatles were still alive!). It was pretty affordable. My father was affluent at the time, but I knew many people at uni who came from lower-income families and who didn't have scholarships. The opportunity was available and affordable for them, too. This idea that university is for the elite seems to be an American thing, and frankly, it sucks. Something really has to be done in the USA to make higher education affordable for everyone!
I feel that many of these posts aren't addressing the question of living expenses, though. Even if tuition were free, going to class rather than going to paid work is an unaffordable luxury for many people, and I don't think that loans are nearly as available as they once were.
Grants and scholarships as well, not just loans. And tuition has been going up and up as tax subsidies for colleges are going down and down. Those who don't want to pay claim there is plenty of money, it's being wasted. But when that philosophy is put in practice, colleges don't spend less, they charge the students more.
Not even a little bit like this. It's much more a discussion on literary techniques and a huge emphasis on writing. We have a warm up every class period, just writing free form on a specific topic. There have been several group workshops with classmates reviewing your work. That's actually the closest we get to the structure that you're talking about is because our feedback includes a discussion of recently discussed literary devices. There are no exams. No that's entirely on topic. Not the topic people want to talk about but whatever. In any case that's a horrible way to teach, and it actually makes me very sad. Though it probably shouldn't surprise me very much, as most art critics know fuck-nothing about what they're talking about. Having done 5/6 of those, college was still a very different, and transformative, experience. It definitely deserved the elevation.
It's not just in the US. I think University is free in Scotland (along with prescription meds) but you have to be Scottish. I (and anyone else from other parts of GB) would still have to pay for tuition in Scotland. It should be free for anyone who wants to do it but then that would open the floodgates for school-leavers who would see it as a chance to take three (or more) years to bum around doing absolutely nothing and having no responsibility. Also, if it were free, would that mean that the lecturers would be sub-standard as surely their salaries would be reduced ... OK that is going way off tangent.
I agree. You would have to have a weekend job just to pay living expenses if you moved away from home to study (unless your parents are rich and pay your way for you). Or, you would have to have a weekend job to keep yourself in clothes and food and maybe slip your mum a couple of tenna's a week for snap seeing as you're eating her out of house and home and she's still doing all your washing/cleaning/cooking and is not receiving family allowance anymore. (unless your parents are rich and pay your way for you) Hmmm ... I can see a pattern emerging here ...
One minute you're talking American, next thing you're saying 'snap' and 'tennas.' Tenner, I think. Tenna is a dreadful currency of the underground, desperate people, all that. Just go to college will you, I mean it is simply just as difficult from the other side of the perspective, with my education, my fruity vowels, inheritance if I stick it out - having to talk to you low people, types in shops, y'know, all that, public facilities, admin, IT, completely exhausting for my brains. Just think about it, next time.
It's 'free' only by the good grace and sense of the Scottish Government. There are no grants of the type my father and his generation enjoyed. I still have a substantial student debt, deducted from my salary incrementally and proportionately to the monies earned. To assert that its an easy ride for working class people in Scotland to pay their way through Higher Education is frankly a complete fallacy. Those from privileged backgrounds however, well that was and still is another matter. On the question of 'do you need a degree to be a writer?' Of course not. A good standard of education though? Well, that really goes without saying.
Beggin' yer pardon, kind Sir. My books are based in NJ and NY, I am from Yorkshire and the North East of England - forgive my confusion of the two languages from time to time and maybe I will forgive the errors which pop up in your posts from time to time. And just to clarify, yes, I meant 'tenners' and tennas are actually a feminine hygiene product where I come from. And I also apologize for my dictionary being set to US English which also means everything I type is probably miss-spelled too. Damn my fingers, too quick for my brain to keep up with.
I hope I have a good standard of education (9 GCSE's, couple of C&G's and various food certificates) - I think I have ... one which I have added to over the last 25 years.
As I said, I was in a co-op program at university. That means four months school, four months work, repeat until you're done. I was able to earn enough in my work terms to cover my tuition, books, food, and a place to live (furnished room for $32/week) for the next school term, plus some walking-around money. My father paid for my first year, but I paid for the rest of them out of my work-term money. I knew some students who got jobs overseas in their work terms (some in oil fields in Saudi Arabia, for example), and they made a ton of money - much more than I did. They drove around the campus in new cars and were able to buy houses before they even graduated. I wasn't in that category, but I made enough to get by.
It needn't even be formal qualifications. A strong command of the English language and a voracious appetite for literature and knowledge acquisition should suffice. Oh, and a good story to tell.
Check, check and CHECK! I've been having a look at the OU's Creative Writing MA. Maybe if I send them a copy of my book they will just mail me a degree ... JOKING before anyone jumps on me for that one! (I've never done script writing, that would be an eyeopener. I would confidently take the course if I had a spare 3K and could give up work for a year ...)
Mat Marquis de Brighton clambered upon his horse, the shiny, leather buttocks straining as he assumed position for the ride to Italy, the grand tour. Suddenly maid Cutecat rushed from her cauldron, the folio pressed tight to her chest. ‘M’lud, m’lud, you said you would?’ ‘Aye, of course.’ Matthew placed the grubby portfolio close against his own fine chest, galloped toward the hillside, tossing the manuscript to a flock of lepers who licked the burdock at the field's edge and who would most properly appreciate a change in texture.
