#i started this blog when i was an undergrad who didn't even think music was a possibility

[souryogurt64]

hey sour!

I was curious if you had any advice for an english grad student whose at a crossroads in their life?

so, I’m about halfway through my master’s in english, and quite frankly, I hate it. every day I wake up questioning the purpose of what I do. a year ago, I thought that teaching literature was what I was put on this earth to do — but now, I have begun to question that. analyzing literature is morally and intellectually enriching, but as the days go on, I wonder what real-world benefit an 18 year old can really gain from that. (at the moment, I’m much more drawn to rhetoric and composition studies, but my university tricked me during the admissions process and accepted me into a program with no graduate level coursework in that subject — but that’s another story)

anyway. my studies are making me depressed, and I miss writing for fun (I used to be a journalist before I switched majors) — and I see your writing for scrunchie and it gives me a little hope. you’re writing about projects and subjects that matter to you, and I can tell you clearly enjoy the work that you put out.

is there hope for someone like me to find a job, or a hobby as enriching as that? do you have advice for someone who wants to start writing again for the joy of it all?

thanks for suffering through this late night ramble. I love your blog, and I fully intend to get through the Gray dissertation after finals <3 what I’ve read is fantastic! keep up the killer work!

Yeah definitely! I majored in English during undergrad because I felt a very strong calling and I felt like it was what I was meant to do. I doubted myself a lot but I just felt like it was how my brain worked and I had to do it. Similar to you I felt drawn to a lot of rhetoric classes as well, and I did kind of accidentally stumble into a second Communications major, but that was in undergrad.

I can’t really speak on anything involving grad school because I didn’t really do that. I definitely feel for you, I think the higher ed process and most admin are intentionally manipulative, and a lot of professors think they’re well-meaning but kind of live in a ridiculous bubble and expect everyone else to, too.

As for a career, I knew majoring in English was a big risk to take, and I was pretty OK with failing because I knew I had to. I thought I wanted to be a music journalist, but recently I realized I actually don't at all. Once I realized that, I decided to try and get a job. A couple things kind of converged sort of out of pseudo-nowhere and I ended up getting a really, really good job.

I don't want to be insufferable but people always told me if I majored in English I would be lucky to have a shot at making 30k a year teaching and would probably work at McDonald's for the rest of my life. And this job is so beyond anything I even knew was possible for a job to have. Plus, I really enjoy it, and I feel like it is a perfect fit for me. I worked really hard for this and to get into the position to have a shot, even if I didn't always understand what I was working towards. But a percentage of it was just being in the right place at the right time. In short, yes, it is possible.

My advice would just to be to always trust your instincts, use your connections first, do what you're passionate about, and fill out your resume. I made rent by working in a restaurant, but I was doing a lot of weird gigs off like, Craigslist so I had stuff to put on my resume. I studied interview questions pretty much daily for months both verbally, with people, and by rewriting them. Volunteer-related stuff was also a big plus I think. The zine and a reference were 100% the main reasons I got hired though, I barely talked about my work experience at all.

As for the hobby, I liked interviewing bands for awhile but I got super sick of it. I wrote fanfic and stories pretty much constantly as a kid, and then when I was late teens-very early twenties I mostly stopped except for occasional poetry and erotica. I am a bad prose writer and I thought the only type of writing you could do was like, novels, and I knew that was not my forte.

But I really loved writing essays in college, and I was always viewing bandom through like the English major lens. I referenced The Outsiders and the PWHC blowout on here I think and then someone sent me an ask about it. I wrote an essay in response and posted it on the band interviews website and it got a way bigger response than almost all of the band interviews ever did.

Then I realized that like… there were no rules against doing this really strange and niche and kind of genreless thing I enjoyed doing and really wanted to do that almost no one else cared about. And if I wanted to write 40 page literary analysis about Fall Out Boy even if almost no one else on planet Earth has even considered doing that, I could, and I didn't have to write flawless 100k romance fanfiction like I was jealous of other people for being able to do.

So I guess just do whatever you want even if it's incredibly weird lol