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[MSC]

It is not very well known that P.T. Barnum strongly felt that a traditional clown cold eats a peter.

[Bobby Isosceles]

He is talking about my college.  And the town that I live in.

But who suggested going to annapolis? Not I. I suggested a meetup closer to DC (which, I may add, would be closer to Rockville) for the purpose of barbeque. I give a shit about Annapolis (although I have a nasty habit of sleeping with loonies from St. John's, which I am beginning to suspect is less a university and more an insane asylum)

Is St. John's a good college? I got a thing from them in the mail. I am trying to decide which college to attend.

Statistically speaking, of the three people from there I've met, all are clinically insane. Enjoy!

Yes Bobby, but isn't everybody you meet at your uh, institution clinically insane?

I'm so normal and boring you'd be amazed.

[Bozack]

From the people I have met, it seems that St. Johns is a good place to go to if you want to work out a cohesive philosophy for life. However, if you want to get a job.......not as good.

[Silverberg]

People who go to college to get a job are silly. Theater/English double major, baby.

[Max]

it is, in fact, true that everyone at st. john's is crazy.  but they're all different crazy.  this is hard to explain, but sort of imagine that a huge invisible hand went all around the country to different types of groups of friends - jocks and religious people and achewood readers and stoners and nerds etc. - and picked out the single weirdest kid from each group.  that is what st. john's is, basically.  so, in other words, the curriculum is awesome and i love it; but the kids are either a lot of fun or unbelievably annoying, depending on the day.

[V-Adore]

People who go to college to get a job are silly. Theater/English double major, baby.

Represent. My majors (Japanese/Biology/Neuroscience) are a little more employable, but only a little. I've never really grokked people who treat college as if it's a four-year Employable Individual Factory; I can understand the attitude coming out of people who are really just taking classes for professional advancement, but when it's people my age, it sort of saddens me.

[Bozack]

I guess I'm not really in classes to learn job skills, because god knows I'm not doing that. I'm just using college to try and figure out what I like to do. Maybe by the end of the 4 years I'll know what I want to go to college and learn to do!
So far, I like playing guitar.

[andalucia]

The Cultural Studies option concentrates on analysis of forms of cultural expression and symbolic interaction, and of the various media through which these may be disseminated and transformed. Such study concerns symbolic form, aesthetically based forms of analysis, and the various modes of criticism and theory relevant to media which contain both verbal and non-verbal elements. The aim is above all to hone students' analytical and interpretive skills while introducing them to specific critical approaches to cultural studies. This is not a major in journalism or communications; and while many of our graduates go on to do creative work in a variety of media, instruction in film and video production is not part of the curriculum.

I won't pretend I don't occasionally wonder why I'm doing this.

[Silverberg]

Try an' eat the ivory off that tower sometime, it'll cold chip your teeth all to hell and you won't be able to afford a dentist to fix your hella crazy grill.  College is all 'bout learning to shrug off the dirty hippie in us all.

Indulge him and loan 'im the futon occaisionally, but soon he's gotta go to the Y.

the word we're looking for here is balance.  have some fun in school but be prepared to kick the real world in the nuts before it gets yours.

*Large shrug.*

For mine own part, it's the English half of my - prospective, as I'm only a Freshman - major that's ivory towerish. I just love books and stuff. As for theater, I want to be an actor, and say what you will about the profession, but the study of it does prepare a person for a legitimate and applicable trade, y'know? Moreso than... well, that Cultural Studies thing, for all that it sounds kinda cool.

Besides, I'm a damn good thespian. I would take Sir Anthony Hopkins to school in the car of pain.

[robot_roll_call]

 say what you will about the profession, but the study of it does prepare a person for a legitimate and applicable trade, y'know?

pffffft

Besides, I'm a damn good thespian. I would take Sir Anthony Hopkins to school in the car of pain.

PFFFFFFFFT

[V-Adore]

Try an' eat the ivory off that tower sometime, it'll cold chip your teeth all to hell and you won't be able to afford a dentist to fix your hella crazy grill.  College is all 'bout learning to shrug off the dirty hippie in us all.

Indulge him and loan 'im the futon occaisionally, but soon he's gotta go to the Y.

the word we're looking for here is balance.  have some fun in school but be prepared to kick the real world in the nuts before it gets yours.

Man, I never said that I was totally going to go rent a garret in New York and starve to death. I fully expect to go to graduate school and then get employed in developmental neuroscience, hopefully actually making cash money to be exchanged for goods and services. I'm just saying that I don't get the people I knew in high school who were just like "ho hum, I'll sit around for four years and then I'll be employable." (It doesn't help that most of them decided that they'd rather watch anime or smoke dope than go to class, and as a result most of them aren't in school anymore.)

[Mantonio]

I bet Aaaaarthur threw a way cooler Oscar party than Pat did.

[AugustWest]

Try an' eat the ivory off that tower sometime, it'll cold chip your teeth all to hell and you won't be able to afford a dentist to fix your hella crazy grill.  College is all 'bout learning to shrug off the dirty hippie in us all.

Indulge him and loan 'im the futon occaisionally, but soon he's gotta go to the Y.

the word we're looking for here is balance.  have some fun in school but be prepared to kick the real world in the nuts before it gets yours.

Man, I never said that I was totally going to go rent a garret in New York and starve to death. I fully expect to go to graduate school and then get employed in developmental neuroscience, hopefully actually making cash money to be exchanged for goods and services. I'm just saying that I don't get the people I knew in high school who were just like "ho hum, I'll sit around for four years and then I'll be employable." (It doesn't help that most of them decided that they'd rather watch anime or smoke dope than go to class, and as a result most of them aren't in school anymore.)

Ash, V!

Calm yourselves, please.  Allow me to assume my usual professional role of mediator and voice of calm reason (riiiiight).  Ash is much closer to my generation.  V you are not.  Things have changed a little since our day.

Our plan = liberal arts + something kinda career related = undergrad degree.

Your plan = liberal arts undergrad + career related grad degree = happy joy time.

I think what's changed is the necessity for a graduate degree.  Whereas we felt comfortable cramming some greedy practical training into our first four years, nowadays four years post-prom isn't quite as highly respectable as it used to be.  So, if you have to get a graduate degree anyway, why not postpone the unpleasantness of moneygrubbing indoctrination as long as possible?

Personally, I spent 3 years as a philosophy major, then 2 years as a journalism major w/ a philosophy minor.  Then I got my law degree (which can alternatively be viewed as selling my soul to Satan or as 3 years of studying advanced logic and applied anthropology.)

Anyhooo... the point of this blathering is that 20 years ago it was more necessary to obtain some level of career education as an undergrad because fewer students found it necessary to grad school.  Of course, all of the clever, smart and handsome ones did...

[Turbo Ninja]

The Oscars were last night?

Oscar presenter Tim Robbins makes a gesture toward host Chris Rock, after Rock's comments about his politics
during the 77th Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

[V-Adore]

Our plan = liberal arts + something kinda career related = undergrad degree.

Your plan = liberal arts undergrad + career related grad degree = happy joy time.

I think what's changed is the necessity for a graduate degree.  Whereas we felt comfortable cramming some greedy practical training into our first four years, nowadays four years post-prom isn't quite as highly respectable as it used to be.  So, if you have to get a graduate degree anyway, why not postpone the unpleasantness of moneygrubbing indoctrination as long as possible?

Very fair point. I would agree with you that there seems to be much more of an aura of necessity over graduate school; my main experience was in the sciences, where every advising session involved the phrase "you'll need it for grad school" and the entire curriculum is based on the assumption that all biology majors will go get the M.D. or Ph.D. ASAP, but it seems to be the case in other disciplines, too. I'm not sure whether that is a bad thing or not.

That said, I should probably clarify my initial statements. I don't have a problem with going to undergrad with the expectation of developing job skills; hell, some of my best friends expect to get jobs based on their B.A.s. (Some of them may even be right.) Majoring in Art History because you want to be a museum curator is as noble as majoring in Art History for the depth, man. What I object to is the mentality that all college is is a factory where you walk in a valedictorian and four years later emerge a Young Professional -- treating these four years as a "diploma mill," when they should in fact be treated as the new American adolescence. But that's another rant, really...