Working at AG...

[kitandkat]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have wanted to major in creative writing because my favorite author, Jodi Picoult, did as well. I am thinking of applying to Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Columbia, among others. As far as I know, all the schools I've been invited to (including these, MIT, Brown, and Dartmouth) have history. I'm thinking I would like to probably double-major in that. As for teaching, I would either be a history or English teacher. I researched it, and to be a HS teacher you just have to take a test in that subject area after you have your teaching lisence. I really liked the Johns Hopkins writing program a lot. Also, I'm taking CW in school this year, and it's OK so far. I enjoyed the activities up until we had to write a story with a prompt. Do all classes do that? I don't mind very open-ended prompts, but I don't like ones like the one I had... "You are walking down the hall and hear strange sounds [that we listened to in class] and see a strange door..." I love reading and writing, so I don't mind reading the books for classes. I suppose if I didn't like it, I could always switch to it as a minor.

[auri]

Originally posted by Kit, Kat, and Friends:
Thanks for the advice everyone. I have wanted to major in creative writing because my favorite author, Jodi Picoult, did as well. I am thinking of applying to Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Columbia, among others. As far as I know, all the schools I've been invited to (including these, MIT, Brown, and Dartmouth) have history. I'm thinking I would like to probably double-major in that. As for teaching, I would either be a history or English teacher. I researched it, and to be a HS teacher you just have to take a test in that subject area after you have your teaching lisence. I really liked the Johns Hopkins writing program a lot. Also, I'm taking CW in school this year, and it's OK so far. I enjoyed the activities up until we had to write a story with a prompt. Do all classes do that? I don't mind very open-ended prompts, but I don't like ones like the one I had... "You are walking down the hall and hear strange sounds [that we listened to in class] and see a strange door..." I love reading and writing, so I don't mind reading the books for classes. I suppose if I didn't like it, I could always switch to it as a minor.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If that's where your interest lies and you're looking at that level of school, you might want to consider NYU. They have what is considered a top-notch writing program and being located in NYC means you get to network a lot more effectively with people in publishing, advertising, public relations, etc. And, of course, you'd be a subway ride away from AGPNY. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Jeanette M.]

Originally posted by Kit, Kat, and Friends:
As for teaching, I would either be a history or English teacher. I researched it, and to be a HS teacher you just have to take a test in that subject area after you have your teaching lisence.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Make very sure (as in talking to a counselor in the Secondary Education department of your college) of those requirements, Colleen. In Utah, in addition to having a teaching certificate, you also have to be accredited in the area you are hired to teach. I applied once for a part-time English teaching job at our high school during the time I was working as a sub. I discovered that before I could be hired to teach English, I had to be accredited in English (my college degree was in music ed, so music was the only subject I was accredited to teach) - which meant another 12-15 credit hours of college English classes! Basically, with my teaching certificate I could sub in any subject, but not be hired to teach it full time unless I had the accreditation.

[Katie148]

originally posted by Kenshinchan:
I can tell you that I have a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, and it has never once helped me to get any sort of work. In fact, I'm currently at a job that doesn't require a college degree at all. And if you want to be a writer, there's very few jobs that require a degree in Creative Writing.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Holy cow, that was exactly what I was going to say - that entire paragraph describes me perfectly. [img]confused.gif[/img] You wouldn't happen to be working as an administrative assistant, would you? Because if so, we really are living the same life. [img]wink.gif[/img] SO glad I'm not the only creative writing major with a useless degree who wishes she'd majored in something else!

Colleen, if you really want to be a creative writing major, then do it, but please, please double major with something else that's slightly more practical. If you really want to work for AG, maybe pick something more business related for a second major, like public relations or communications or advertising. Majoring only in creative writing will give you basically no marketable job skills, and making a living as a self-employed writer is incredibly difficult. I was very idealistic when I picked my major, and wanted to "follow my heart" and study what I loved, and frankly, I really wish I hadn't. Creative writing is possibly the most useless major there is, and I am so tired from working at my completely un-writing-related full-time job that I don't even have the energy or desire to write at all anymore in my precious little free time. I have accepted the fact that I probably will never finish my long-dreamed about novel unless I marry a rich man who makes enough money to support the both of us while I work on my writing and maybe, someday, finish something publishable. Writing is a job in itself, and it's very difficult to try to work two jobs, only one of which actually gets you a paycheck every week. [img]frown.gif[/img] So, just keep in mind...writing is a great hobby, but translating it into an actual job isn't easy, and it's good to have a fallback major that you can actually have a career out of. Then, if you really have the talent and the drive to work your butt off at writing and hit the big-time and get some books published that you can live off of, great, but if not...well, you'll actually have other skills that you can use to get a decent job that you might actually like.

[Kenshinchan]

Katie, you nailed it. We are twins separated at birth. I will PM you. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Colleen, your early Creative Writing classes will almost certainly have prompts that are at least sometimes restrictive. Just glancing at what I assume are my assignments from my first Creative Writing class, I have two short stories and works called "Characterization," "Detail," "Plot and Theme," "Setting," and "Point of View"--all indicating prompts, though many of them weren't nearly as structured as yours. As the classes progressed, we were allowed to do both more and less. My later teacher forbid us from writing "genre fiction" (which seemed to me to be almost anything resembling a story where something happens [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) but we had to write I believe three short stories, no prompts, and also analyze some published writers.

Looking at Ms. Picoult's website (sorry; I haven't read anything by her [img]redface.gif[/img] ), it DOES look like she writes literary fiction, so your major MAY come in handy, if that's how you want to write. I don't think it will help you write for AG, though.

<font color="#33CCCC" size="1">[ September 11, 2006 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Kenshinchan ]</font>

[Asellus]

Originally posted by Kenshinchan:
I can tell you that I have a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, and it has never once helped me to get any sort of work. In fact, I'm currently at a job that doesn't require a college degree at all. And if you want to be a writer, there's very few jobs that require a degree in Creative Writing.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">My sister's husband has a degree in Journalism, and he's working as a waiter in a fancy hotel (with prices in that restaurant that could kill...ouch) He actually makes more then when he worked for a newspaper. Go Figure [img]biggrin.gif[/img]