Why My Graduation Kicked Your Graduation’s Monkey Butt

I received a mass e-mail from my step mom congratulating both my sister and I on our graduations this week.  Mine from college.  Hers from preschool.

PRESCHOOL?!  With a cap and gown and everything?!  

Why, yes.  It turns out while I was going across the stage in my black gown and gold and white chords, celebrating 17+ years of schooling (you can tell I’m a liberal arts major when I had to get out my computer calculator to double check the number), my little sister was wearing her white cap and gown, crying that some other little girl stole her hair tie.

And since both of us are now graduates, my competitive side feels the need to compare and contrast our accomplishments to see which of us is more successful.

1. After two years of preschool, my little sister can now sing almost the entire alphabet (not quite ‘x-y-z’).
2. She can touch her toes and almost tie her shoes. I can’t touch my toes.
3. She can tell you when you’re completely wrong.  Especially when you’re wrong about who gets the last piece of dessert.  Or who actually won Candy Land. (You might have thought you won the game from the directions, but she’ll keep you in line of what did and didn’t happen.)
4. She knows that pink always matches pink, regardless of what shade it is.
5. She can name all the Disney Princesses in her eight o’clock bedtime sleep.

And what can liberal arts majors do?

1. We can also tell you you’re wrong, and sometimes convince you you’re wrong, even when you might possibly be right.
2. We can sound pretentious in any cocktail conversation by name dropping the most obscure authors and artists we can think to name.
3. We can tie our shoes, if we believe in the concept of shoes.
4. We can say the alphabet in a foreign language, maybe sometimes slurring our speech because we learned it from a drunk, womanizing professor.
5. Depending what scene we associate with, we may find ourselves wearing two different shades of pink and a tie around our heads to be “ironic.”
6. We can get a job and do “real world” activities…but it might have nothing to do with our major.

In the end, I’m not really sure who wins.  Because I hear there are naps in kindergarten.  And that sounds pretty nice.

-The Boxcar Children

“I have an English B.S.A.” Part I

I would like to propose a new classification for English degrees: the Bachelor’s of Science and Art.  Yeah, I know you can double major in two English fields and get both technically (at least at my school you could).  However, I think that ALL English degrees should just be both automatically.

B.S. Arguments: 

• Well, let’s just look at the initials for a second, shall we?  I mean, really, I think we all can admit that when you decide to major in English, you are receiving an education in how to B.S. your way through a number of situations.  However, I feel that an “education in B.S.ing” is not necessarily a bad thing, nor should carry a negative connotation.  Is it so awful that an English major is eloquent?  I mean, heck, my B.A. in English came in handy during a game of “Apples to Apples” in which I convinced someone that Fidel Castro was the poster child for the word “lovable” and that I should win the card.  In the real world, won’t there be times when you’ll have to calm down a client or sell an idea that you’re not crazy about?  Also, is it so awful that English majors can take mundane topics and write an exciting paper?  Look at any advertisement today and you’ll see this phenomenon of glamorizing the unglamorous.  Why do you think people buy Axe body spray?  It smells like perfumed feet, but I honestly think men see the commercial and think, “YES!  All I have to do is get that body spray and women will come hither!”  An extensive knowledge of B.S.ing is wildly applicable in the real world, in my opinion.*                                  

  *For more examples of English majors B.S.ing, see the entire paragraph above

   

• Learning to B.S. is a science.  There are certain techniques that can be employed during your college career that can be really useful while refining your B.S.ing skills.  (See my previous post “How to Get a Good Grade”).  Being a good English major walks hand-in-hand with learning what techniques one should use to work the system.  As an English major, you actually get an education in psychology.  Since there is no one right answer like there is in math or chemistry, a good English major learns to psycho-analyze her teachers and figure out exactly what they want to hear.  Is your professor a person who likes to hear their own ideas parroted back?  Do they like you coming up with revolutionary theses?  Again, this skill is SO useful after graduation when you’re trying to please your boss, satisfy a client, write copy, design advertisements… the list goes on.

Stay tuned for the B.A. arguments… there’s more “art” involved in a B.A. than they lead you to believe!

~Nancy Drew

How to Get an “A” in an English Class Without Really Trying

 

A post dedicated for those who are still in college…

I know that most people who read this post will be skeptical of my claim that a few simple tricks will improve your English grade. However, I guarantee that you will melt the heart of your English professor by employing these simple tactics, and you will be well on your way to getting that elusive, condescending English-major “voice” that will earn you respect and an “A.”

Use big words. Go ahead and be a sesquipedalian! Use big words, even if you have no idea what they mean. My philosophy is that the more letters there are in a word, the less likely it is that your teacher will be 100% sure of the definition. The thesaurus on Microsoft Word is a good tool and your friend—or rather, it’s an advantageous device and an invaluable comrade.

Use tons of adjectives. I once conducted an informal experiment where for one semester, I used “poignant” as an adjective at least once in my paper for all my papers. I got an “A” on all my papers that semester. And in response to my biology teacher’s claim that cells can’t be poignant… um…yeah they can.

Find symbolism. In everything. Nothing impresses your professor more or elevates your status among your peers like finding symbolism in a work. Explain the symbolism of “attendance policy” on your professor’s syllabus to the class. Nod knowingly when your professor wears a “Gap Athletic Department” and explain its symbolism and its role in society. Be creative.  You’re in an English class—anything you say is valid if you support it enough.

Use post-its. Whatever book you’re reading for your lit class, cover the pages with post-its sticking out haphazardly. Better still is to listen for when someone references a minor plot point, and then have your face light up and start frantically thumbing through pages. If your professor calls you out on it, thumb through a few more pages and then regretfully and dramatically sigh and say, “I’m still looking for a page number.”

Bide your time in class discussions. Wait for the “BS point”—that point in the class discussion when it’s possible to raise your hand and contribute something to the discussion that doesn’t require knowledge of what you’re actually learning in class. Personal anecdotes or stories a perfect way to get participation points without having to know anything or contribute anything of substance to the discussion.

Reference a “classic.” Name drop whenever possible. “This reminds me of Tolstoy’s use of commas in Anna Karenina…”

Use semicolons. Who cares if you use semi-colons incorrectly? It’s much more impressive if you use the mysterious semicolon when a period would suffice.

Quantity over Quality. Quality over quantity? Please. When in doubt, just add length. Change the font, the margins, the spacing between the lines, expand character spacing, or add a huge heading. Get that extra length. 

Use the “History Channel” voice. Whenever you see someone on the history channel, historians are always talking in a condescending and authoritative voice. It doesn’t matter what you say—it matters how you say it. Say in a confident voice that C.S. Lewis was actually a rabbit and say it with authority.

…I’m only half-joking.

~Nancy Drew

Living at Home: The Price Is Right

Disclaimer: The authors of Liberal Arts Leftovers do not recommend people sitting on their ass all day watching television.  We do recommend healthy dosages of television at least once daily to ensure sanity within a parental environment.

After college, there seems to be a universal panic moment for all graduates.  Millions of questions enter our brains: ”What am I doing with my life?” “How will I ever become a fully functioning individual when I have no money?” “How do I find a job when I have no connections?” and “Why is that kid licking the sidewalk?!”

I can’t tell you why the kid is licking the sidewalk, other than the fact you will encounter many more strange occurrences in the real world once you begin interacting with society in general.  But I can tell you that watching Daytime television is what you should be doing with your life.

Nothing tops the graduation cake more than moving back home to find yourself in your Eskimo pajamas on a Tuesday afternoon watching ”Simply Ming” on PBS (which I’m sure no one has heard of besides 75 year old women who also stay home during the day) while the rest of the productive world is at work. 

Really, those older men living in their parents’ basement give stunted personal growth a bad name.  You don’t need to collect creepy figurines of cats made out of rabbit hair or conduct obscure science experiments in your parents’ basement once you move back home.  That lifestyle is reserved for those that cut their hair by the light of their computer and wonder why no one clicks “yes” on their dating site.

You just can’t find a job. 

Therefore, all you need is a little medicinal television.  A whole day’s worth of television watching is like GOB’s Forget-Me-Now pills.   Instead of asking yourself what you want to do after college or how you’re going to stay a well-rounded individual while still living at home, just relax and soak up the fake world that Daytime television has created.  You’ll begin to like your life a bit more compared to the people on “Jerry Springer” or “The Hills.”  At least you didn’t cheat on your baby’s daddy with your mother’s boyfriend, right?

In fact, I recommend thinking of your newly acquired skill of Daytime television watching as an asset to finding a job.  An asset of gaining perspective.  After all, your family has to come back home from their busy days at work at some point.  And at that time, they’ll want to know what you did with your time. 

It’s always nice to be able to say, “I learned a new skill, Mom and Dad.” 

But keep in mind that your parents might not understand.  Because, after all, they weren’t sitting at home all day watching Daytime television to know any worse case scenarios that could have taken place.  They’ll never know of the socially inept basement dweller you could have been.  Therefore, I recommend to never actually tell your parents what skill you actually learned.  Make them guess it was something to do with Business administration or Industrial management.

-The Boxcar Children

Phyllis Schlafly: I Love Your Hair, But Hate Your Thinking

 

Dear Phyllis Schlafly,

I love your style with your classy pantsuits and golden brooches.  No one could call you unrefined in your conservative ways.  But I came across your 2007 article entitled “Advice to College Students: Don’t Major in English,” and I think you might be a little crazy.  I take that back. Misinformed.  What, were you an English major or something?

You know how they say that Hitler had a funny mustache because he was maladjusted (if we’re just being polite)? Well you have a funny hair-do and I think it probably relates to the fact that you think English majors are killers. 

I mean, regardless of the fact that “Weapons of Mass Destruction 101″ and “How to Be Like Osama” classes are required for all incoming Freshman English majors, we’re pretty book savvy.  Not psychopath savvy.

But I forget, your biggest concern for such a liberally based major was the lack of Shakespeare:

ACTA says “a degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. It is tantamount to fraud.” College students: don’t waste your scarce college dollars on a major in English.

Yes, Shakespeare is a classic, but does that mean that an entire department is going to be walking around smacking their heads into walls because they don’t have a balding man with a thin moustache and impeccable speech to guide them?

No.  And furthermore, I would gladly take a class entitled “Of Nags, Bitches, and Shrews: Women and Animals in Western Literature.” So thank you for so blatantly advertising these liberal classes in your attempt to condemn them. 

In fact, as my apparently worthless analytic English skills read on in your article saying that America does not have a race or discrimination problem,  my petite brain began to wonder why you were fighting so hard for an extremely pasty white man to be kept in English classrooms and not Langston Hughes or Sherman Alexie?

In the decades before “progressive” education became the vogue, English majors were required to study Shakespeare, the preeminent author of English literature. The premise was that students should be introduced to the best that has been thought and said.

What happened? To borrow words from Hamlet: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” Universities deliberately replaced courses in the great authors of English literature with what professors openly call “fresh concerns,” “under-represented cultures,” and “ethnic or non-Western literature.”

Perhaps what happened was that we learned a white man’s mouth wasn’t necessarily “the best that has been thought and said.”  But what would I know?  I’m just a scary, liberal literary person.  Maybe we should just go back to a time when all of history and literature was made by white, oppressive males. 

Anyway, no hard feelings, right? Bridge next Thursday?  I’ll bring the crab dip.

Regards,

The Boxcar Children

Your Own Midwestern Hollywood

California and New York come to mind when I think of flashy, successful careers.  After college, I think all Liberal Arts majors have that brief moment where they consider putting all their chips in one basket and heading for “The Hills” or “The Real World” to make their big break in whatever specialty they have.  Or maybe they did do it.  After all, Jenna Fischer from “The Office” did it–attending Truman State University and trying for and making it in Hollywood afterwards.  I’m not here to say it can’t be done.  I’m just asking why it can’t take place in the Midwest.

Why does Hollywood have to have all the fun?  There are plenty of hard-working, Midwestern individuals who can write a line just like Tech Nine or Mark Twain.

And so here I am to help you think of your Midwestern entry-level job differently.  For example, in a few weeks, I will start my first real-life, adult job as an Activities Assistant at The Nursing Home.  Glamorous, right?  Right.

I can picture it now: I walk into The Nursing Home with my designer shoes and rhinestone sun glasses with air blowing my hair back from the cool breeze outside.  Hazel, an 85 year old minx, sits in the sun room with her two pimps, discussing who got on who the night before.  Blanche nurses a mimosa with a couple of her cocktail girlfriends, and Mr. Heindman relaxes in a bubbling hot tub with his white chest hair and gold chains making a sexy rendezvous with the water.  I smile to myself as I gather my posse around me and we all start reenacting “Ocean’s Eleven” for our casino activity for the day.  Just another day at the old folks home…

So the next time you consider yourself an underachiever for not going to California or New York to make it big, just think of that secretarial job as a scene from “The Office” or that janitorial job as a scene from “Scrubs.”  Make Hollywood come to you.  And even though you might end up somewhat delusional about what you actually do for a living, nothing can compare to the sight of Gladys, in all her wheel-chair glory, slapping a ho for bringing her the wrong latte at The Nursing Home cafeteria.

-The Boxcar Children

What Do You Do with a BA in English?

When I first heard the song “What Do you Do with a BA in English?” from the musical Avenue Q, I smiled a little and bopped along, thinking it was a clever little song that I could play for my English major friends (oh yes, Dear Reader, I’m that big of a nerd).

But as this week before graduation wears on, I realized this song is God’s way of looking and laughing at me as I continue my pitiful search to find a job that doesn’t involve a funny hat and the question “do you want fries with that?” He’s finally reaping revenge for that one time I lied and said I’d go to church if I rolled a purple in Cranium, and subsequently failed to deliver (In retrospect, cheating God might’ve pissed Him off a bit. I can’t recommend trying it).

BC is right– you CAN find a job after college with a liberal arts degree. I KNOW you can. I’ve seen it done!

…I think I might have been sleeping in class when they covered actually going out and DOING it.

Yeah, you think now that when it comes your turn to find a job that it’ll be a piece of cake. I know I did. I started applying early March, with plenty of time to search for that perfect job that pays a lot and is exactly what I want to do. Fast-forward to May: yesterday I actually found myself applying to be a groundskeeper at a nearby college. That’s right, after “four years of college” and “plenty of knowledge,” I’m hoping to get a job planting shrubs. Wouldn’t my mom be proud?

So in my not-so-infinite wisdom, I leave you with some advice before I graduate and begin my exciting career as a lawn care associate.

* Never, ever promise something to God in hopes of winning a board game. Definitely not worth it, even if you do whip some’s butt in Cranium (in your face, Bess!)

* Ahem. If you’re still in college, start thinking about what your resume is going to look like NOW. If you’re interested in journalism, work at your school’s newspaper. If you’re interested in publishing, look for a job or an internship through your University’s Press. Don’t wait till senior year to realize you have no experience or marketable skills (Not that it happened to me or anything…)

* Work the resume. Turn “I got 5 bucks from everyone one time and bought a keg for my frat” into “collected and managed club funds for team-building activities.” Be creative!

* Set your pride aside and apply everywhere. If you think “hey, I think I could stand doing that without wanting to gouge out my eyes,” apply for it! You might not land your dream job out of college, but I hear this money stuff is important after you graduate.

* Resist the urge to slap family members when they say oh-so-helpful things like, “maybe you should apply a LOT of places… have you applied to more than one job?” when at last count, you’ve sent your resume in to 42 different jobs.

* Don’t expect big things from Career Builder and Monster. I wrote that I wanted a job in publishing and they sent me an email saying my dream job was through the Navy.

* Look for places like hospitals, colleges, etc. that have websites where you can apply for multiple jobs at once. It saves you a lot of time, and if you can get an in sometimes it can lead you to a better job.

And so… the search begins.

~Nancy Drew

The Boxcar Children Tells It Like It Is…

Hello, I am an English major graduating in six days and I am not planning on being a teacher. Excuza me?! Not going to be a teacher?! But that’s crazy talk. Isn’t every Liberal Arts major supposed to graduate, get a teaching job, and start wearing tacky teacher sweaters with Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic shoes?

For some reason, it has been forced into the minds of parents, half-drunk great aunts, people you meet at your family’s dinner parties, and random neighbors that the phrase “English major” is synonymous with “teacher.”

As far as I can tell, English major is still synonymous with “I can bullshit my way through life enough to get a job in anything besides math.” Unless you’re one of those universally grand English majors that’s got the full package of math skillz and english skillz. But no one cares about you. I’m talking about those Bachelor-of-Arts-because-I’m-scared-of-the-Sciences people.

You, out there! I’m telling you that you can do something other than be a teacher–besides being homeless or a stripper. In fact, if you retort back to those nosy family members that you are not going to be a teacher, but a lobbyist or librarian, you will get a slightly quizzical look in return followed by an “Ahh…” as if you had just expanded their perceptions to both accept gay marriage and stem cell research. And if you told them you were planning on being an astronaut or broadcast journalist, you will see a look on their face as if they traveled back in time to discover the world was round rather than flat. It’s that mindblowing for old people to find there are other options than teaching for a Liberal Arts major. And you can give yourself a little pat on the back for helping a family friend or grandmother expand their horizons.

If you have happened upon Liberal Arts Leftovers, you have come to a magical place full of quirky realizations and neurotic misgivings. Nancy Drew and I welcome you to our world of life after college and all that unknown shit that everyone tries to figure out about their lives. Enjoy!

-The Boxcar Children