I’m in my second semester of college, and I don’t feel like I’m doing any work towards my major. Last semester, I took a bunch of classes that told me things I already know; keep up with new media changes (way ahead of you, Mass Communications class), don’t exposit too hard when writing, really good work is really hard to make, and if you want to get into the business, you have to work really hard and know a lot of people, and that knowing how to put elements together without making them feel forced will lead to better storytelling.
Don’t take that to mean I’m some master storytelling for whom all of this is trivial work worthy only of peasants. From what I recall, I didn’t do too well at most of ’em. But I never once felt like anything I was learning was going to help me with my job. Granted, one of my classes was mandated by a scholarship and super-grateful for, so I really can’t besmirch that part too much. In all honesty, my writing at Bitmob feels like the closest thing I’m doing to further my career, and I’ve been doing that for about a year and a half without much progress, aside from possibly getting the right people to read my stuff. That’s not a whine; I’m saying that these classes don’t feel like progress.
Even though my major is English, I hate that I’m being forced into several other classes for the purpose of being “well-rounded.” Pre-calc — a class I took in high school and am only taking because I have to meet a math requirement, a science class, a social science class, and a speech class. The social science class will probably be the one I’ll get the most use out of, or maybe the speech. It bothers me that most of the stuff I’m being taught now I’ve already learned, and am only learning again because of arbitrary requirement. Normally, I’d chalk it up to colleges wanting to keep you as long as possible to squeeze you for as much money as possible, but because my scholarship is school-funded, I’m draining them instead.
Were I able to choose my classes without restrictions, I’d probably take as many composition classes as I possibly could, take one or two actual journalism classes, and a bunch of design and video production classes. For the field I’ll (hopefully) be working in one day, that’s well-rounded. But because English is a writing major, those classes don’t count towards my major. Which means I’ll have to wait a few years to take them.
I thought we took care of this “well-rounded” bullshit in high school.
My Generation's For Sale 