what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

Maybe that reads like I've resigned myself to what I do, but to me it feels more like a natural progression.

The Jungle is a novel from the 20s or 30s or something that's about half expose of the meatpacking industry and half socialist utopianism. I think it's pretty terribly written, honestly, but hey it's famous.

xp - jaymc: Yeah, that's a pretty common natural progression.

The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis

Upton Sinclair I think?

upton sinclair iirc

oops - sorry. Wrong Sinclair, you're right.

There are also a fair number of essays/books about the role of the artist or the place of avant-garde art in socialist/communist critiques of capitalism, but I'm not remembering any titles off the top of my head. I dimly remember Theodor Adorno writing about this at some point, but I'm not sure.

The Jungle was also published earlier than that: 1906.

yeah, i figured i might've been off there but didn't bother looking it up.

Ooh, what is the jungle? Is it some Utopian work?

omg such massive lols

I don't remember the "be an artist" part; it was more "work for no money, then become so bitter that black people are taking your jobs that you become a Socialist".

the only thing i remember about that book is a) how much i hated it and b) how even as a middle schooler i saw right through the stupid ending

LJ should really visit America, if only for the sake of ilx threads about it.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jungle/summary.html

Here is a summary of the book with the racist asides about negresses dancing like topless savages removed.

hi louis--this is a common feeling among people our age--i was feeling it very strongly recently but lucked into a gig that gives me a little more purpose--but my girlfriend is very much feeling it--i wish i had advice for you

aw cheers max! and cheers jaymc for giving some long-term perspective! cheers everyone!

also - don't write about negresses dancing like topless savages.

i had a brief and related meltdown on this thread and everyone was very nice: Severe Anxiety

and what i gathered from it is basically there is nothing you can "do" to get out of the quarterlife existential crisis except to just sort of keep living and doing things that you like and make you feel fulfilled and eventually you will figure out a way to be happy and satisfied. and if you dont i guess you have to take up meditiation.

Being hard-left of politic and yet desiring to create special or individualistic art is the hardest conundrum my moral mind has to deal with. I hope it resolves itself well. Can any of you think of something that discusses this conundrum? A touchstone for me to explore?

― 102. LJ: British. 5. (acoleuthic), Wednesday, December 9, 2009 6:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

kermode's 'history and value'.
empson's 'some versions of pastoral'.

Being hard-left of politic and yet desiring to create special or individualistic art is the hardest conundrum my moral mind has to deal with. I hope it resolves itself well. Can any of you think of something that discusses this conundrum? A touchstone for me to explore?

― 102. LJ: British. 5. (acoleuthic), Wednesday, December 9, 2009 6:53 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation

Hello LJ. I'm 3 hours late but:

- there's more to writing than what Word can give you - I can spell and punctuate and know probably a (very) little more about grammar than yr average UK twenty-something, but I cannot write a snappily crystal-clear summary of anything for toffee (see my ILX posts for proof); treasure yr writing skills and the course's advice on honing them, because the combination really isn't a universal given

- if yr lament is the eternal lament of the arts graduate, take this bit of paper which is being dangled in front of you to be able to say "oh, I'm not just an arts grad, I have a vaguely scientific qualification"

- you are very far from alone in being in yr early 20s and unsure about career paths, fearful of the very concept of "career"; so is pretty much everyone else (the ones that aren't may well have a rude awakening ahead of them), but we all bumble on through and some of us work it out further along, and with luck it doesn't matter what we did in the meantime but it probably looks better if you can point at it on your CV and say "i stuck this out"
(disclaimer: i did not even stick out my undergrad, which i admit is different entirely, and am rather behind on jaymc's schedule)

Also, "marketing" may sound like shitty devil-fellating business, sure we all know the Bill Hicks routine, but there are scientists out there doing good work that would benefit humanity, except do they have a fucking clue how to tell humanity this? No they most likely do not. Doing it for them doesn't sound so bad, does it?

I think what I mean is, do the course, don't do the course, whichever (though staying on the course seems a good move, especially if you can't think of a specific backup plan - a qualification, even one you don't feel is "right", doesn't close doors nearly as much as it opens them), but make a decision and don't get caught up in "oh I should have..." or with what other people are doing. Most of them are as lost as you. I know that after Oxbridge you can probably think of a handful of people who lucked into some amazing job in the same field their dad is known in and still more assholes who seem to have it all sorted out, but the second bunch probably don't really, and there's no point worrying about the first.

this is all I can offer after a decade of being a degree-less bum angsting about not knowing what I want to do with my life - as you can see, I have never taken my own advice

Being hard-left of politic and yet desiring to create special or individualistic art is the hardest conundrum my moral mind has to deal with.

lucky u!

also: louis i went thru all this very recently myself. luckily, i've gone back to school for something i enjoy very much, but it's only in retrospect that i can say that---i wasn't totally sure, esp when i was taking remedial lol english major science classes.

but, to the point about writing not being a worthwhile skill: rong rong rong. i mean, maybe everyone in england just writes better than everyone in america (likely!), but having worked briefly as a copywriter (which, for many of our clients, was essentially technical writing) i can tell you that NON-writers can sometimes be ~blown away~ by someone's ability to draft a multi-paragraph email in under fifteen minutes. lots of people HATE writing, and would be very happy indeed if someone just did it for them. ie - medical students.

so take heart, dude. if you come out of j-school with the ability to take sophisticated scientific information and make it interesting and easy to understand for the layman, you will have a skill that 99% of people (and most scientists) utterly lack.

cheers spacecadet! mine appears to be a fairly universal lament across the ranks of arts graduates who possess anything like a smidgen of intelligence (so, the ones you'll find on ilx). the message i'm getting is not to become impatient, and to make the best of my situation, which is wise. i will probably stick with the course despite having very little interest in it. i know other people are lost; my qualm is that many of them will become resolved in a manner that i would not like to experience myself. i don't really care if people are lucking into these jobs; i don't envy them. my success will happen with due luck and determination.

also thanks NRQ, i'll check those things out. iatee you hound.

gbx i have not had to choose one siamese twin or one parent to live with; surely you can see why that's an acceptable moral conundrum? yes i have had an 'easy' life full of privilege. however the privileges are (thankfully) expiring.

ooh another post hang on gimme a mo-

How long is course, LJ? (sorry, this is probably already answered somewhere, but I couldn't find it on a quick skim)

It is 9 months. So it'll all be over in June! Or was that July? Probably still worth pursuing. Their aim is that within 3 weeks of the course ending, we'll all be in employment as journalists. o_O

The number of copywriting jobs I've seen advertised anywhere in Britain = LOW, sadly. There just isn't a market for it. My beef with this course is that it's teaching me not a great deal that I didn't know before, even if it is giving me 'all sorts of opportunities' to get involved with a business I am becoming rapidly repulsed by. But I guess a qualification is a qualification.

I would be very happy to write other peoples' shit up for cash. Sadly, they're writing it up themselves for the most part. Maybe this course will provide me with an unexpected opportunity. We'll see.

lj that wasn't a jab at a life of privilege, really! i guess it's more that i think worrying about the moral tension created by trying to shoehorn "individual artistic expression" into a socialist utopia or w/e isn't sufficiently problematic to outweigh other, more quotidian moral conundrums. like, you know, tipping, or masturbation in the presence of an infant.

btw having spent the better part of my afternoon doing a write-up on a dude who was less than a month old, i can assure that infants are just feeding and pooping tubes with googly eyes stuck on. just, you know, fyi

xp no, they're not writing it themselves! my sis used to work at [A LARGE COMPANY IN MN] and all she did was edit FDA applications (which are thousands of pages long). i think she even got her name on a few papers, simply because, after all the SCIENCE was said and done (w/o her), she was left to write it all up for publication!

good for your sister!

lj this is semi serious but the answer is to come to america and write for the semi-literate yanks

http://scholarman.soganicmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/comingtoamerica.jpg

and when u do, come in the regalia illustrated above

dunno if we could handle LJ tbh

that is actually something i would do x70billion given half a chance...i definitely want to live over your way at some stage in my life, maybe when yr country has gotten more socialist lol joeks maybe when i can afford the air fare and have guaranteed employment

also GBX ur otm re: me overthinking my delicate moral positions esp regarding societal contribution vs. personal artistic expression...also your sister's job sounds decent, although if it was too much of a 24/7 thing i wd probably die of sad

get a job fooling minnesotans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40

LJ

this seems useful advice:

seriously - communications/PR/outreach for some sort of non-profit/advocacy group sounds like something you would be good at and find fulfilling.

― sarahel, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 6:38 PM

you like writing and communicating / persuading / debating with people

have a look through

PR Jobs in the UK
http://www.prweekjobs.co.uk/

even your course mentions, public relations and communication

http://www.city.ac.uk/study/courses/arts/science-journalism.html
It prepares you for a wide range of professional science journalism careers in print, broadcast and new media as well as, public relations and communication.

hmmmmmmmmm. that's possibly not what i had in mind. but i won't completely discount it. yet. if i do pr it has to be for a worthy cause, not a worthless product.

print is dead, broadcast is a possibility although it is very vapid and everybody is on coke, and new media is not something that one should really be paid for

what about radio

get a job with the BEEB

Sure I'd be a radio DJ or a sports commentator but I've gone down the wrong paths to get there. Others are ahead. I've taken the wrong turnings and there's always someone who's gotten there first.

...

I don't even want a dream job (yet)! These things can wait.

my point here was that these can't both be right. you're what, 22? you haven't gone down the wrong path for anything yet.

do all your shopping at Wal-mart!

radio is probably the one area of media i'd really like to get involved with; i just think that there are so many people wanting to get in there and some of them are probably extremely pushy

i'd love to work for, say, resonance fm or some other arts station. the beeb? pft! gr i need to be less defeatist. but they are all on coke.

no one ever got a job in radio by not applying

pretty sound advice, max

friend of mine works at the bbc world service and showed me around one day. there is a pub in the basement!

tho i guess there's a pub in every british basement, really

max is like my spiritual fader

there's a pub in every cupboard under the stairs, keeps the moths busy

i secretly want to do radio, now that i think about it

i am doing a radio module on my course next term, actually

hmm maybe i do not feel so bad after all.

you should be an announcer on bbc world radio so we can all hear you