Now that I’m four years past the official culmination of my MFA in creative writing program, when people ask me “what would you have done differently?” I feel like I can actually answer it with a level of objectivity to be useful.
I’ve had conversations with people enough times to know a bit better how to respond to the question as well. So here’s my attempt.
There is only one thing I would have done differently: picked a different school.
Trust me, I am not denigrating the fine institution, instructors or students that I spent two years of Tuesday and Thursday nights with. I encountered some great people there, including a few instructors and fellow students who are making great contributions to writing and the teaching of writing.
But there is one thing I regret most of all, and that’s not focusing on teaching.
I am miserable in the corporate world. Always have been. Always will be. It puts food on the table but with every paycheck comes the price of a few ounces of my soul. I’ve been a professional writer and editor for about 15 years (including the horrendous years of being an assistant editor wherein I did nearly no editing and a crap-ton of assisting) — throughout these years I’ve never wanted to do something more than ditch the profit-driven corporate world and teach writing full-time.
So why did I go to a program that didn’t have an integrated teaching component to it? Convenience.
I was working full-time, raising two kids, my program was close by (I could walk to it from my apartment), and held classes in the evenings. I also liked the fact that the program could be completed in two years.
If I had to do things differently, I think I would go back and find ways to make my MFA experience a little less convenient and a little more conducive to my long-term goals. It’s not that the experience was easy. Far from it. The two years I was in grad school were a couple of the most difficult I’ve had in my life — with the extreme highs and extreme lows of birth and death enveloping constant day-to-day struggles to just get shit done. In fact, if things had been any less convenient, I probably would have given up on the whole affair. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I ultimately didn’t accomplish something I had hoped to gain from the experience. If I had a time machine I’d go back and fix that one thing.
Before you embark on your MFA journey, understand clearly what your goals are and what you’ll have to give up in order to get them. As in all things creative, convenience and shortcuts don’t often bear out the results we really want.
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Comments 9
I totally hear you on what you’re saying in this post. I’ve had various degrees of jobs (from soul-sucking temping to meaningful0but-9-5 work) and if it’s truly soul-sucking, it’s hard to have any energy left afterwards.
I also think that the time to change is, always, now. For me, I am finally moving things around in my writing life (taking classes, applying for local writer benefits like communal writing space) and it makes me not worry so much about the day job. Because my day job is good work, but my writing is my REAL work, and after a 7-year period post-art-MA trying to figure out why I wasn’t creating regularly, I am writing, constantly.
I wonder :is writing for your corporate job making it hard to write after you punch out?
I don’t really know you, but I do work as a coach (primarily for college students). I’d be willing to discuss this stuff with you over email, if you’d like. Sometimes all it takes is a sounding board.
On last thing: this quote, from the interview you linked to, seems apt here:
“Richard Hugo says that MFA grads, or any writer, for that matter, shouldn’t teach until they’ve been writing, really writing, for ten years. Can’t think of a better piece of advice. Getting an MFA degree is no conference of authority; in fact, receiving one’s MFA is just the beginning of the real writing journey. Why should one leave an MFA program and immediately begin teaching. I’d like my teachers to have some more experience in writing before they begin tossing around exercises and maxims.”
Cheers.
Posted 09 Nov 2009 at 3:48 pm ¶I feel you on this! I wish I had developed more teaching experience when i went into the program I attended, but I also picked a program – due largely – by taking the easiest way I could. I, however, did get a great deal from my experience and I, ultimately, wouldn’t change where I went.
That, however, doesn’t stop me from thinking about going back to do an MA
Great Post!
Posted 21 Nov 2009 at 3:24 pm ¶I teach writing. It’s not necessarily the next best thing to being able to sit at home and write. Actually it leaves less time for you to write, because all your creative energy and focus is on your student’s writing AND usually their writing needs a lot of work. Plus you have a boss. You have colleagues. You have policies and paperwork. You do have a paycheck, a small one.
Have you tried adjunct teaching nights at a local community college? It could give you experience for your resume and to see how much you really want to make this a career. In graduate school, it’s easy to watch your grad professors (these lofty, established authors) teach a one-one schedule, which is one course in the fall and one course in the spring, and dream that for ourselves. Yet, the opportunities available are often teaching young undergraduates who may not provide the same mature and serious minded classroom atomosphere of graduate school. There will be great classes full of able-bodied writers and there will be classes full of knuckleheads. I love both sets of students and the challenges each present. I enjoy teaching thoroughly, but I know it hurts my writing. It saps away time and energy.
Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 1:16 am ¶What were your long term goals before going into the MFA? I know you’ve stated focusing on teaching, but did you go in with the aim to improve your writing toward being a pro writer?
I completed a BA (hons) in English & Creative Studies, then looked at doing an MFA. Ten years on and I still haven’t done so, and the only reason I can think of doing an MFA is to go on and do a doctorate then become a lecturer perhaps. But that isn’t really my aim re: writing – I just want to write. It would be nice to have those letters though, which sounds kind of pointless! – MFA..
At the moment I keep a 1000+ word offbeat fiction short blog at http://jamesbent.com/blog and I work in the corporate world as well, so full on feel you re: selling an ounce of soul a day.
Posted 06 Dec 2009 at 12:43 am ¶Antioch University, in Los Angles, offers, in a low residency format (10 days of residency), a one semester post-M.F.A. certificate in teaching creative writing, if that’s what you’re looking for. Though you will have to be registered for 12 credit hours during the semester (fun! school work to relax after coming home from a day of mind numbing drudgery of corporate work), along with tuition and perhaps additional student loans, it may possibly also offer you an opportunity to do something you wished to do.
http://www.antiochla.edu/academics/mfa-creative-writing/certificate-programs/teaching-creative-writing
However, if it’s just teaching that you wish to be doing, why about looking into, what about looking into the Teach for America program or a summer internship at a prep school like Andover [http://www.andover.edu/SummerSessionOutreach/SummerSession/Employment/Pages/default.aspx] as way to get some experience and make a career transition in the academic direction you seem to desire?
Posted 07 Apr 2010 at 9:11 am ¶Where did you go to college to get your MFA degree? I’m thinking about getting my MFA degree in communication studies i.e, directing, producing, screen writting. I’m thinking about going to CSULA. Is this where you went? Did you hear of anything about their program, good or bad?
Posted 08 May 2010 at 12:45 am ¶I think you hit the nail on the head with this post. To me, it seems like the real problem with a writing career is dealing with the careers you have to hold down before you’re established enough to have a writing career.
From what you’re describing, it feels like teaching works much the same way – in order to get the writing experience and still raise your family, you had to get an MFA without a teaching focus. It’s a sacrifice, but I don’t think that should stop you from pursuing the dream to teach. If anything, I feel that someone who has made this kind of sacrifice is in a better position to mentor students. And I say this because I’ve been very fortunate – my own MFA has been a two-year residency program with a teaching fellowship. Tuition is covered, we participate in workshops, and we’re required to teach an undergraduate course – from the academic perspective, it couldn’t get much better.
On the flip side, though, I still feel that my experiences from before the MFA program have shaped me a great deal. I was in the Army for five years, I’d worked lots of odd jobs (and even been let go from a few), and I had been keeping my own writing life alive without the continual encouragement of school. When I teach, now, I have all those experiences to put on the table. I understand my students when they struggle with their writing, and I can relate – many of my classmates can’t. I’ve spoken with a few grad students who feel that it’s better to “stop the bad writers from going into writing” than it is to encourage everyone. And that, to me, just doesn’t feel right.
I know you posted this a while ago, so I’m hoping you’ve gone on to find a teachings position since then. Either way, it sounds like you’re someone who sets and keeps priorities, and that’s important. Maybe it will take some time, but you strike me as someone who would do a fine job not only teaching, but showing your students how to keep the writing dream alive through tough times.
Have a good one,
Posted 11 May 2010 at 4:17 pm ¶Ryan
Ryan,
Thanks for your comments. I really appreciate your thoughts. I’m just getting ready to start writing here a bit more. Hope you keep reading and discussing.
Gordon
Posted 15 May 2010 at 9:40 am ¶I graduated with a BA one year ago and now have a full-time job (I can do homework there) that pays the rent. I am about 25 grand in debt from my BA. Stupidly, I didn’t get a teaching certificate and now I want to teach. I wouldn’t mind teaching at a high school…a prep school would be nice. Ideally, I’d eventually teach a low-res writing program or at an art school.
So now I don’t know if I should get a teaching certificate or an MFA from a low-res school and try to get some teaching under my belt at the same time. Keep in mind, I must keep my full-time night job to pay rent. I am also afraid that I’ll be moving out of state in a couple years, so a certificate might not be worth it. It is considerably cheaper, but from all I’ve seen of private schools, I need both. Anything higher, I need experience, which I can’t get without a certificate.
Basically, I need a certificate to gain experience, so I could get this and do an MFA at the same time (possibly pay out of pocket for some of it), or I could get an MFA while working my mindless job, then try to get a certificate in whatever state I end up in, but then I end up and be 29 with no experience, but then could get a job right away and could possibly pay for all of my certificate out of pocket.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO??
Posted 07 Jul 2010 at 2:49 pm ¶Speak Your Mind