Don’t Be a Moon-Calf
This professor’s essay on being an English major rings true, although I’m too old to have experienced Dead Poets Society while still deciding on my educational path. I guess the part that resounds most dolorously is that of why undergraduate literature majors fail to complete a Ph.D., as it represents, superficially, my own experience. I didn’t fall to politics, but to a dissatisfaction with the purpose of a post-graduate degree.

(Mom, no, listen, it wasn’t wasted; I still credit what I learned at grad school – or, anyway, how I learned – with much of my success in the world beyond the academy, just as I can credit earlier stages in my education with my success within it.)

And I don’t have to practice what I love so much in secret or as singing along to Barry Manilow.