Degrees of Writing

Advanced degrees do not make someone a better writer; it is the practice required during that education that makes you better. Before the 1970s and 80s, writers refined their skills at newspapers, magazines, book publishers, and anywhere else they could find paying work. They learned from mentors, when possible. When there were no mentors readily available, writers read and wrote and did both as often as possible.

A general liberal arts undergraduate experience would be the ideal for writers, because the more you understand the universe, nature, and humanity the more tools you have for analyzing people—and the characters your create. Graduate degrees or professional training would be the site of specialization, after a student has explored a variety of subjects and developed a (bit more) certainty regarding a career path.

Blogging and my personal creative writing took a back seat to higher education during 2016 and much of 2017. During the year, I completed an MFA in Film and Digital Technology. Adding yet another advanced degree to a doctorate and a master’s in the fields of rhetoric and writing is not something I would recommend to an aspiring writer unless the career path includes teaching or research. The return on investment is negative, at best, for most advanced degrees in the humanities unless you attend an elite program that establishes a well-connected social network.

If you earn a writing degree from Yale or Brown, then there’s little question the degree helps your career. Simply being admitted into a prestigious program indicates that publishers and producers will be paying attention to you and your classmates. Connections matter, especially in the small universe of publishing, theater, and screenwriting. But not everyone can attend an NYU, UCLA, or USC for graduate school.

Here is my blunt opinionated take on advanced degrees for writers: If you aren’t going to attend one of the elite schools, but are set on obtaining an MFA or Ph.D. in writing, attend a good state university. You will be able to teach and you won’t have the stifling debts of a private university.

If you really want to write as a career, you need to write.

If you want to write for Hollywood, you should move to a city that’s making a lot of feature films and pursue any and every job you can on sets and in studios. Attend seminars, go to conferences, meet people, and try to seek out mentors. Write constantly, screenplay after screenplay. Rewrite and refine the screenplays over time, if you believe in them. But realize that the speculative script market does not exist anymore. The best way to write for film is to already work in the film and television industry. Work as a production assistant. Intern at a production studio or talent agency. Get into the network. That’s far more value than most graduate schools will offer.

If you want to write for stage, work in theater. Join theatrical companies and learn the craft so you write productions that small companies can stage. Move to a city with a vibrant stage culture. Unlike film, there are dozens of good theater cities in the United States and elsewhere. Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh… the list goes on of cities with active new productions and development opportunities.

The above examples from screen and stage hold for print publishing. If you have the talent and ability to attend a top-ten university writing program, take it. There’s no replacement for the networks of the elite universities; the professors at USC and UCLA are Hollywood writers, producers, and directors. The professors at Brown and Yale are Broadway produced playwrights. The courses keep you writing, lead to production or publication, and you build a network that will support and nurture a career in writing. I don’t know the prestige programs for poetry or literary fiction, but it is easy to guess that Brown, NYU, and Syracuse have an advantage thanks to their New York literary connections. (Brown might be in Rhode Island, but like Yale in Connecticut, it has well-respected New York publishing and production connections.)

My degrees are from two private and two public universities, and I was fortunate to attend respected programs. But, I did not attend Brown or NYU and I wasn’t accepted into the MFA in Dramatic Writing at USC, though I earned my undergraduate degrees in English and journalism from USC.

As an undergraduate, my goals were to teach and write. Teaching has generally led me to various degrees—not writing. This important disctinction means that obtaining my Ph.D. and MFA were influenced by the potential teaching posts for which I would qualify, not the connections the universities had to the theater world or film industry. If writing full-time in Hollywood or for Broadway had been an all-consuming goal, then I would have made different educational choices… I would have worked instead of pursing the degrees.

Yes, I still dream of a Broadway play and a feature film. I write constantly when I’m not teaching and I do all I can to hear from successful writers. Many people I know are passionate dreamers, living in L.A. or New York and working odd jobs to pursue their passions. I respect that, because success is a combination of hard work, being there, and luck.

Teaching seemed like a safety net choice to me. It’s a job that allows you to share a passion with young people while pursuing writing at night, on weekends, and during breaks. A writer who teaches always has two full-time jobs. Make no mistake, you will write 40 hours each week (at least) and you will be teaching and grading papers at least as many. It’s a grueling choice, made because starving as an artist isn’t that appealing to me (or my wife).

Ask yourself these difficult questions if you consider an advanced degree in writing:

If you apply to top-ranked prestige programs, but are not accepted, don’t give up: work in the field. If you want to teach, then attend a good state university—many of which are top-ranked programs, too.

No question that I am over-educated. This was a choice to prioritize the more realistic option to teach while pursuing my writing dreams. Do I lack faith in my writing skills? Most writers do. But that insecurity as a writer did not inform my choice to teach, which was based more on wanting a nice, secure, middle-class life with my best friend and partner.

If I do have a play or screenplay hit the big time, universities will be clamoring for me to lecture! Right? Maybe?

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