(no subject)

[labrujah]

Looking at grad schools I have discovered that Columbia offers these classes: Theater and Machine Art (about puppets), and Politics in Film under its English department.

Comments

[circekills.livejournal.com]

you may want to talk to staxsoulkid. he either goes to columbia as a grad or undergrad; i can't remember which. my friend karen just graduated w/ a grad degree in journalism and is now making big bucks. good luck. you'll be set for life. columbia!

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing me to somebody in the know. Yeah, it sounds good and all but two of my friends just got MAs and are as poor and directionless as ever...

[secrethistoryx.livejournal.com]

Hah, I'm an MFA from Columbia too. Don't mean nothin'. My advice is to go for the classes with teachers who are INTO teaching (and not just doing it while waiting for their next, better gig to strike.) Though I suspect sitting in on Luc Sante and Simon Schama's classes wouldn't be too bad at all. Grab lecture lists from people in all departments and crash as many classes as you can -- they're free you know, and the film dept has some good ones too.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

I like Luc Sante a lot. Unfortunately I don't know anything about most of the professors -- I will have to do some investigating.

[secrethistoryx.livejournal.com]

If I could do it all again, I might go for American Studies or Eng Lit -- I love the classes you and your friends have named. In the School of the Arts (where I was), it's mainly good for networking with the faculty and finding future collaborators (which I didn't -- I thrived better before and after my time there). I think in the depts you're mentioning, you might actually learn something! Good luck! *envy* Deep Sea Thought? *ENVY*

But the great tragedy is that Comp. Lit. students end up stocking VCRs at the Wiz.

[neverwhispered.livejournal.com]

what're you thinking of going to Columbia for?

i think a friend of mine here is in that Politics in Film class, or was. he also is taking (took?) a class called Politics and American Film, i think during the same semester. if you like, i'll ask him what he thought.

as far as interesting (or just silly/esoteric) English department classes go, there's also a seminar called Medieval Animals and one called Deep Sea Thought. apparently there's a seminar on witches and i think one on pirates, too, because i know people who've taken them. strange.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

Aha! You too.

I'm looking at the American Studies, English Lit & Journalism programs. The journalism, well, you have to REALLY want to be a journalist to do it apparently, whereas I just like reading nonfiction and magazine articles. I'm more of an editor than a writer, this I've figured out at least. They make you write an article every day.

The English Lit program seems to offer a lot on Medieval, Enlightenment, etc. periods and requires some classes in them. And I like 20th century American literature the best, and literary journalism. So it seems like I would end up taking a bunch of classes in stuff I am not really interested in, like plays, Shakespeare, etc. I could cobble something together out of American Novel, film noir, African American lit etc. I just can't tell if I would like it and get my horizons broadened, or get stuck reading 18th century novels.

The American Studies program is cool because you take some literature, some history, some art history and something from Anthropology or Film or Sociology or another field. But then I am afraid that I will have too many classes where they are deconstructing the effects of race class and gender on things, which was what my undergrad experience was like, and which I am not into.

What are you studying? Are you going straight into grad school or no?

[neverwhispered.livejournal.com]

i'm studying english. i probably won't head straight into grad school, although i don't really know what else i'll do. probably (hopefully?) end up working in publishing for a while.

i don't know anything about postgrad programs here, but as far as undergrad goes, i've heard numerous people tout the relative open-endedness of the comp lit and american studies majors as opposed to the english. the english major here has a requirement of three pre-1800 lit classes, which for i expected to be sort of a pain, although it's proven surprisingly easy. in fact, this semester, i'm completing all three courses, and all are surprisingly relevant; we read (among others) foucault, cixous, and benjamin (each class has one of 'em), and since i'm a sucker for theory, i don't really mind it. despite my 20th c. lit preferences, by the time i finish my major i'll've probably only taken two classes i wouldn't've wanted to otherwise -- and even those classes are pretty damn good.

as far as journalism goes, i know a bunch of people -- several of whom are all writers & editors at nashville's alternative weekly, actually -- who've gone to columbia grad for english and for journalism, and the general consensus seems to be that journalism school is sort of unnecessarily one-track and that english (or some comp lit / am studies version, i'd imagine) proves just as sufficient in the long run.

oh, and if you wanna consult more columbia english majors, try heather (sitonmykarma).

[neverwhispered.livejournal.com]

i'm studying english. i probably won't head straight into grad school, although i don't really know what else i'll do. probably (hopefully?) end up working in publishing for a while.

i don't know anything about postgrad programs here, but as far as undergrad goes, i've heard numerous people tout the relative open-endedness of the comp lit and american studies majors as opposed to the english. the english major here has a requirement of three pre-1800 lit classes, which for i expected to be sort of a pain, although it's proven surprisingly easy. in fact, this semester, i'm completing all three courses, and all are surprisingly relevant; we read (among others) foucault, cixous, and benjamin (each class has one of 'em), and since i'm a sucker for theory, i don't really mind it. despite my 20th c. lit preferences, by the time i finish my major i'll've probably only taken two classes i wouldn't've wanted to otherwise -- and even those classes are pretty damn good.

as far as journalism goes, i know a bunch of people -- several of whom are all writers & editors at nashville's alternative weekly, actually -- who've gone to columbia grad for english and for journalism, and the general consensus seems to be that journalism school is sort of unnecessarily one-track and that english (or some comp lit / am studies version, i'd imagine) proves just as sufficient in the long run.

oh, and if you wanna consult more columbia english majors, try heather (sitonmykarma).

[pirateman.livejournal.com]

If you want to take a class on big bloody cows hanging from the ceiling, go to Michigan State! Yeah!

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

That's some quality learnin'. People will always need beef.