What can you do with an MA in English?

[felis_ultharus]

Well, it turns out I passed my exam, so I have all my requirements for my Master's degree.

This means I've completed all my requirements to get my Master's in English.

This means I'm (not-yet-officially) a Master of English. So eat your hearts out, all you peons of English!

Of course, the inability to do anything with an MA in English is proverbial. Can't teach it in high school without an Education degree. Can't teach it overseas without a TESL degree. Can't teach it university without a PhD.

But it's not entirely useless. It can be used to smack people over the head with when they disagree with me about the interpretation of a novel. Then I can say, "Do you have an MA in English?"

I can attend seminars on endangered and extinct languages, and the troubles some languages face against the onslaught of English -- and wave it around, yelling, "Woo hoo! We're number one!"

I believe it also gives me the right to have people who misuse the word "ironic" executed. We have a secret English ninja deathsquad for that.

So it's really not all that useless after all.

Of course, the best use is making people squirm. Even before I got it, saying, "I'm doing my Master's in English Lit" made 90% of the people I told it to either a) list all the books they read recently, to prove they read, or b) offer their excuses and apologies as to why they weren't reading as much as they should. We make people as nervous as priests once did!

Comments

[infinitecomplex.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! :)

I believe it also gives you the right to drown people who abuse apostrophes in a bucket of week-old mackerel.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

^_^

My roommate bought this poster (http://www.angryflower.com/aposter.html). Maybe "week-old mackeral" should be added to it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I move that we add people who misuse "literally" to Death Row, too.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I agree. Language can't fight back, so it's up to us to stop its torture.

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

Yay! Congratulations!

And you CAN teach CEGEP.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Glad to know someone appreciats my lack of qualification! Being a British Columbian, I hadn't even thought about CEGEP.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

See, your MA is at least more useful than mine. I can only theoretically teach Cegep. None of them have EAS programs, oddly. ;) They all need English teachers. ^_^

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I bet they'd be popular if they existed. Maybe you can pitch it to Dawson ^_^

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

Well, I would have taken the classes. ^_^ But not Dawson, Champlain. Then I could walk to work and Bruce always said that he wanted us to be coworkers. *chuckle*

[rougemacabre.livejournal.com]

Are you absolutely sure you can't teach High School? I just ask because I have a friend with a degree in mathematics - no education degree - and she teaches math in high school here. She had to take a couple special courses for a certification of some type, but it took her only a couple months to do it.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I heard it was easier here, but yeah -- an education certificate is necessary.

Who knows? Maybe I'll go that route. I doubt I can handle more university at this point.

[rougemacabre.livejournal.com]

If you'd like, I can ask her exactly what she had to do but I know she didn't return to university to do it.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I would appreciate that ^_^

[seal7.livejournal.com]

Congrats :D

Your amusing side comes out a lot lately (at least on lj), maybe that's the doing of the finished degree :P

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Nah, it'd already started -- it goes in waves, and I've particularly bombarded by absurdity lately (as I'm reading ancient Welsh mythology).

[siencyn.livejournal.com]

You actually can go teach English abroad; the TESL cert is very often optional.

Also, congrats!

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I didn't realize that.

And thank you!

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

In Japan I think being a white guy is sufficient qualification to be an English teacher. ;) Seriously though, it's true. A lot of people in my department went to teach English in Asia; usually they only require that you have a University degree of some kind, what kind didn't really matter.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I heard it was getting harder for Japan...?

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's possible, my friends (neither of whom had teaching certificates of any kind or were even native english speakers for that matter) got in two years ago and things can change. And it's not like they take everyone. There are interviews and all that, because an increasing amount of people want to go to Japan, but I never heard anything about making a TESL certificate necessary. Besides there's still Korea, they're always looking for English teachers too.

[seal7.livejournal.com]

I don't know about NOW, but you know Nate went there to teach English with a Bachelor in Lighting Design... so if it's gotten harder maybe they want you to have studied languages at least now ;P

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I heard it was harder than that. Maybe I will check into it. I wouldn't want to live in Japan long-term -- probably the worst place in the world for a crowd-phobic person like myself -- but briefly might be a nice experience.

[seal7.livejournal.com]

For him it was probably a plus that he'd had two years of Japanese. There were interviews beforehand and stuff too.
And, yeah- I'm not sure how long you'd last there. Besides the crowds, there's also the fact that Japanese society is far, far away from being about being upfront with each other and you sort of have to know the 'rules' of interaction to not think they actually mean something is okay when they say it's okay.
Mmm- honestly, I think it'd be much nicer for a holiday, I'd never even think about trying to live there, myself. That's just me, though.

[retrogamerbear.livejournal.com]

It's similar to speaking to someone with studies in Psychology. You become aware that s/he may be analyzing every thing you say...

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

True enough. I think psychiatrists and English teachers both people on edge.

I like the icon by the way ^_^

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats!

And if there is a secret ninja death squad, why is Alanis Morissette still alive? :-P

[rougemacabre.livejournal.com]

That was me.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

She has enough fans in the English community that she's been given a special pardon. Besides, her song is useful for illustrating the difference between Morrisettian irony and the real thing.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

Can I be on the ninja death squad? I do have a MA in East Asian Studies what else could I do with it but be a ninja? ;)

Congrats!

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

So is that an MA in East Asian Studies? Or a black belt in it? 'Cause it'd be cool if they issued belts for that ^_^

And thanks!

[sugar-spun.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^

And good luck with your thesis!

Congratulations!

[bananality.livejournal.com]

Of course, the best use is making people squirm.

There's actually quite a lot of money in making people squirm. Maybe not as much as making them wriggle, but still...

Seriously, though - congratulations. You've worked hard for this degree, and you've earned it.

As to what you can do with an MA in English - I don't think it really matters. I think it's more important to figure out what you want to do, and then see how your degree can help.

Re: Congratulations!

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^

What I really wanted it forwas a) to see how other writers write, b) to study the various periods of history through the eyes of the people who lived them.

I also obtained an infinite amount of comedic material for mocking academia.

[jc2004.livejournal.com]

So I guess Alanis Morissette will be the first victim of your firing squad...

If English MAs make people as nervous as priests, maybe you can get belief in proper English and punctuation usage classified as a religion - you'd be entitled to tax benefits and all sorts of other perks - you could do whatever the hell you wanted and say it's the will of whoever your god is - the way the fundamentalists do. Then you could have a job as a high priest and just scare people into giving you money all the time like the regular church system.

Didn't the man who created a society for the protection of apostrophes win an Ig Noble Prize?

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Enough people like Alanis that she's got special immunity ^_^

Besides, if I say "real irony versus Morrisettian irony," everyone knows what I'm talking about.

I don't need tax breaks. I did my taxes, and I still didn't get close enough to the poverty line this year to have to pay taxes :/

I'm actually probably the world's only person looking forward to the time when I have to pay taxes -- until then, I feel like a freeloader on the system, even though I have a job. I've used enough services supported by taxes that I feel I ought to make a contribution to that system.

[scottevil.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. You're my idol.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Thank you ^_^