by Judy

“Twenty Years of Schoolin’/ and they put you on the day shift” - Bob Dylan

Last night I sat down to do one of my favorite things: pay bills. If you can’t tell, that was supposed to be sarcastic. Nevertheless, it’s that time of month; paying can’t be avoided, at least not without late charges and my electricity being turned off. As I sorted through my pile of mail (I tend to lob most mail into one pile to be sorted through at this time) I came across one extra bill to be paid.

Now, technically it was a donation, but hey, I mean, I’m still writing out a check, right? I am a (literally) card-carrying member of Phi Beta Kappa, which is the oldest liberal arts honors society in the U.S. It was founded at William & Mary College in Virginia back during the good ol’ days of the Revolutionary War. Phi Beta Kappa only takes the top few percent of any graduating class, plus students need a recommendation to get in. Needless to say I am especially proud of my Phi Beta Kappa honor, and it looks fantastic on my resume. So I paid the $39 for my yearly dues (the minimum one can pay to still be a member—last year I believe I paid $75 to get a free subscription to PBK’s quarterly journal, but since I’d just paid my mortgage bill, I went with the minimum this time around).

However! That being said…

I have issues with Phi Beta Kappa’s cover letter.

Did you know that only 6% of colleges award the majority of their undergraduate degrees to Liberal Arts majors?

Why, yes, PBK cover letter, actually I did know that! Because you said the exact same thing last year. And last year, I couldn’t help but wonder the same thing that I wonder this year: maybe that low percentage is a good thing.

Let me interject here that I am very happy with my college education. I went to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI (yes: there really is a Kalamazoo) where I double-majored in English (creative writing emphasis) and Comparative Religion and I minored Anthropology. This is what I like to think of as my Triad of Useless Information. I loved every minute of my education and I think that it really made me who I am.

But…

I was in no way prepared to do anything in the *real* world except go to more school (this was the recommendation of most of my professors, perhaps because it’s what they all did). If I could, I probably would go to school for the rest of my life.

(And the reason I haven’t? Take my college roommate for example, who earned her MFA in creative writing, which enabled her to get a part-time teaching job at a community college making 22K a year. When she moved across the state, she started working in Human Resources at a medical company, where last week she got laid off).

I kick myself every time I look at posts on careerbuilder.com for not at least minoring in advertising, as this would have been, I believe, a tremendous help in getting a job in copy writing. For myself, growing into a whole person, liberal arts was the way to go. I still haven’t given up on my dream of being a writer. It’s just that Liberal Arts does not directly prepare students for a career track to take out of college.

What I have liked so much about my online class is that my peers are working adults. Some of them have actually written grants; many of them work in the Human Services industry. My professor is someone who has extensive experience writing grants.

I wonder: if art-focused college majors required more classes that mirrored work in the real world, would more college graduates have an easier time translating their college degrees into real world skills?

While PBK looks great on my resume, I’m still working a job that requires no college education. And with the economy spiraling downwards day by day, fewer companies are willing to train new hires. Now, my degrees do come in handy at the hospital where I work—when medical residents are rude to me, I like to mentally put my credentials as a kind of armor like Mr T’s chains: I graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. And I know how to work this fax machine, which you don’t. Petty? Definitely. But it helps deflect the mean words that mean people spit at you like bullets.

Unfortunately, that’s the only real aid my degrees are to me at this point—they haven’t landed me a career. But the online grant writing class I’m taking now is about translating very Liberal Artsy writing and thinking skills into job-ready skills, so that’s hopeful.