Comments on: choosing a college major: or how to fly by the seat of your pants http://piscesinpurple.com/2009/12/choosing-a-college-major-or-how-to-fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants confessions of a reformed tourist Sun, 29 May 2011 23:24:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Jared http://piscesinpurple.com/2009/12/choosing-a-college-major-or-how-to-fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants/comment-page-1#comment-4437 Jared Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:39:15 +0000 http://piscesinpurple.com/?p=1643#comment-4437 I'm in almost total agreement with this. Infinitely many paths to enlightenment and all that. Unlike you I never had a real summer job, which played a big part in me going back to grad school. I don't regret it exactly, but sometimes it seems like an admission of defeat. I have a cousin who's a sophomore at Wisconsin, English major, French minor. It's kinda awesome to see how excited she gets about Paradise Lost. But her father is an honest-to-goodness businessman instead of schoolteachers like my parents, so she's damn well gonna do some good summer jobs/internships. Which makes me jealous. I'm lashing out by trying to get her into theory; for Christmas I sent her a copy of Professor Culler's Short Intro to Lit Theory. Not sure if my motivation is A) to open her eyes to how the whole "literature is useful preparation for life" thing is a crock of shit or B) to show her something that might be applicable to, say, marketing? To be honest it's probably A, since I'm also pushing hard to get her to read Madame Bovary, whose message is basically that women should not read novels. I’m in almost total agreement with this. Infinitely many paths to enlightenment and all that. Unlike you I never had a real summer job, which played a big part in me going back to grad school. I don’t regret it exactly, but sometimes it seems like an admission of defeat.

I have a cousin who’s a sophomore at Wisconsin, English major, French minor. It’s kinda awesome to see how excited she gets about Paradise Lost. But her father is an honest-to-goodness businessman instead of schoolteachers like my parents, so she’s damn well gonna do some good summer jobs/internships. Which makes me jealous. I’m lashing out by trying to get her into theory; for Christmas I sent her a copy of Professor Culler’s Short Intro to Lit Theory. Not sure if my motivation is A) to open her eyes to how the whole “literature is useful preparation for life” thing is a crock of shit or B) to show her something that might be applicable to, say, marketing? To be honest it’s probably A, since I’m also pushing hard to get her to read Madame Bovary, whose message is basically that women should not read novels.

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