MFA programs: inner debate

[icarus]

I'm debating applying to an MFA program. Or MFA programs, rather.

The goal would be to teach at the junior college level.

The trouble is, I don't have a lot of confidence in college creative writing programs for me as a writer. I wonder if they implicitly teach a kind of literary snobbery.

Does the workshop process, where you throw your stories in the ring to a bunch of people who have little interest and no investment in them, really benefit the writer? Do stories "get better"? Do writers "get better"?

Or do they turn a kind of MFA product, stamped with the seal of approval that "this is now literature"?

What are the pedagogies behind different MFA programs? I keep running into people who tell me X writer who runs this or that program is truly great. Yet they can't tell me how they benefited. Instead they tell me, "Oh, yeah, he was really hard on me" with a kind pride that they could "take it." I'm unclear what the improvement was. Except for developing a thick skin.

I can tell you how I benefited as a writer from fandom. I can enumerate the beta readers, relationships, resources for research, and unflagging enthusiasm for stories. The challenges, the massive stories in short periods of time, the engine to finish that novel that comes from having an audience waiting for the next part, the sparking of creativity. There's a freewheeling joy in fandom that I'm not sure exists in MFA programs.

I wonder if it isn't more beneficial to just read. Just experience life. Turn off the writers the lens, the way a photographer needs to learn to get out from behind the camera.

Of course, I learned that particular approach from a professor who did an MFA.

Comments

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Are you looking for "yay!" support, or are you looking for other concerns, or some kind of mix? Because I can do any of that. :)

[icarus]

Visualize the topic as being like a tin can. Let's kick it around a little. I have a month to decide what to do.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

In that case, I guess my biggest worry would be the likelihood of being able to find a job once the degree's over.

I have a friend who got her MA in English- she's now teaching high school math. My mom's an academic advisor at a university and has been for two decades: it's a state school and they rarely have money to hire new faculty. High schools are constantly looking for math and science teachers (at least in the midwest) and are overloaded with applicants wanting to teach history and English- I don't know if it's the same for junior colleges, but I would not be surprised.

[icarus]

Eh. Right now it's not easy to find a job in any field. I know IT people, programmers, who've been looking for a job for a year. And I've been racking up the teaching experience. When it comes to jobs it's really the experience that gets you the job. That plus luck, meeting/impressing the right people.

I'm never going to teach math or science. I mean, my SAT math scores are in the 400s. The low 400s. So. *shrugs*

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Admittedly there's only one field I know that's hiring anybody they can find- and that's the Christian clergy, which I imagine doesn't help you out a whole lot. Though nursing still seems to have decent demand... but I'd probably willingly detassel before I did that, and that was the one job I always refused on the basis of "I can do better". So.

[icarus]

Heeeey... my IT friend is a devout Chinese Christian. Maybe he'll be interested.

Nursing's facing cut-backs, too. Also, I kill houseplants and have no patience for sick people. I'm a good teacher. And I believe in doing what one is good at. If you suck at a job -- or are mediocre at it -- you'll never have much success in it.

And I know people who've been able to make careers out of Sanskrit just because they're that good.

[lastscorpion]

Okay, I freely admit that I know absolutely nothing about MFA programs, and all I know about writers' workshop thingies is 2nd or 3rd hand. But, I think this anecdote is funny:

My dad signed up for a community college creative writing class once. Only after the class started did he find out that the teacher was defining "success" as being able to get a story or article published in the local newspaper (which he already worked for). He had published two non-fiction books and a number of magazine articles -- travel articles and such. He brought his science fiction stories (which rock, IMO, but which were sent around to a zillion publishers and rejected by every single one, years ago) to the workshop things, and got comments like, "I thought the story was really interesting, really, but why are these people all giant lizards?" LOL!

Take with salt. :-D

[ursula]

I would suggest also doing research into the job market end of things (specifically, informational interviews with people who are at community colleges, though you could also ask in the forums at chronicle.com , if you don't mind a certain fraction of "RUN AWAY NOW" type advice.)

[florahart]

I think the one at my institution is pretty solid as far as the creative process part--we've had some pretty good names come and do the visiting faculty thing--names as in, they are novelists who have written things which are both popular and respected. I only have an opinion as someone who took a fair number of grad English (lit) classes, where there was a decent amount of overlap with the CRWR set and therefore I just sort of heard people talk some (it's more separate than it once was, but there was a time when CRWR was like a type of focus for the MA:Eng, so you could either do MA:Eng, focus on writing, or, MFA:CrWr).

I wonder if, though, who comes in for the guest faculty thing might be an interesting thing to consider, like, are those writers you think you'd like to learn from? I'm just tossing that out--I actually don't know if that would be a particularly good approach at all.

I do think that if your goal is teaching JC-level writing/creative writing, at least in my area, I know that many of the faculty names I see teaching in the vicinity are names I know from their time in the lit or comp lit grad program. So, maybe it would be worth checking around to see whether that's the case in your area? And whether that would influence what you choose to pursue?

[kellyfaboo]

From what I hear, it is the Rhet Comp (terminating in PhD) degree that's sexy to community colleges. But do some research.

[princessofgeeks]

any master's in english or a related field will allow you to teach at a community college. some will let you teach with a bachelor's.

from what i've read, (I do not have an MFA; my master's is in journalism) the MFA helps you as a writer ONLY in that it makes you block out oodles of time to write. It really doesn't do much for you in terms of honing your writing skills, and they vary immensely in terms of quality and approach.

(I am now teaching English at a university with my journalism master's. granted, it's not a Top 50 university, but it worked fine for me. I taught English at a comm college previously.)

The book "Conversations on Writing Fiction" by Neubauer might give you some very good advice. It's an interview style book with about a dozen well known literary fiction authors who are also writing professors. Of course, not being much of a reader of lit fic I didn't recognize the authors, but that's on me.

Good luck!