Reason Number 1 and 2 of Why Grad School is Bullshit
I decided to start a series giving you reasons why Graduate School is total bullshit… So far I have come up with a few different reasons and I wanted to highlight a couple of them today.
REASON 1: People are full of shit
I have a seminar where people come in and talk about what they are studying for a thesis or for their doctoral program. Basically if you can give a shred of a reason why you are studying something you are allowed to pursue it. On Thursday we had someone that was studying Walter Benjamin, she is taking his works and creating different digital art in as her response to some of his pieces.
For those of you who don’t know who Walter Benjamin is I can some up his entire life for you in one sentence. Born to a rich Jewish family (so he never had a real job because he was rich not because he was Jewish), spent his life studying at different universities, smoked a shit ton of hashish, wrote a lot about different things, and then killed himself when the Nazis took all his books. The woman presenting her thoughts on Benjamin basically touted him as a genius and that he was rooted in her soul… she went on to use really big words and fawned over him. In fact the more she talked about him the more I thought she was going to take my pen out of my hand and do nasty things with it, in fact if that happened it would have totally saved the lecture.
At one point she handed out some photo copies of his “essential” readings. One of the readings were his observations while on hashish, she pointed to one quote and basically wet herself over it. Here is the quote:
“Oven turns into cat. The word ‘ginger’ is uttered and suddenly in place of the desk there is a fruit stand, in which I immediately recognize the desk.”
She touted it as being poetic and totally genius. I have to disagree, because when I read that all I could think about was “Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise” where Ogre smoked a ton of weed and said:
“What if d-o-g was spelled c-a-t?”
So I guess Ogre is the modern day Walter Benjamin?
REASON NUMBER 2: I can write papers about…
Craigslist hookers… Yup, I just wrote a seven page paper about how prostitutes use modern technology from social networking sites to craiglist and the community that revolves around these sites. While some people would call it trashy or disgusting, I get to call it revolutionary, the best part is I get to cite my own website for a few of my quotes. I can’t wait for my spring paper where I write on why bukkake is going to usher in a new era of sex.
What do you think is total bullshit about school?
The fact that you not only used Ogre as a reference to grad school, writing a paper about craigslist hookers and then spinning it the way that you did makes you my hero.
“That’s heavy Ogre…”
I’ll sign your chest
It is amazing what passes for education sometimes.
Are you sure the gilr in the 1st reason isnt one of those your wrote about as a craigslist hooker? I mean she has to supprt her obvioulsy serious smoke habit somehow.
At least Hemingway actaully made sense.
What would have gotten you an automatic A was if you interviewed a Craiglist hooker and site her (or him) as a source.
Craigslist has Hookers?! I’m so naive. I guess it makes sense. They need to eat too.
Are you just starting? You clearly haven’t realized all the possibilities here… Take the 1st woman… You say, “Sometimes I feel him in my soul too… how about we get together?” and then crazy grad student sex ensues.
As for the craigslist whore paper, sounds like a great topic. You could even do field research.
Craigslist is so entertaining!
An MBA will not get you laid.
WTF? Kevin’s “Freaking” a bullshit graduate student – it’s grad students like you that piss me off because I don’t think of the genius fucking ideas that you do! Ogre is a fucking genius – I wonder if it’s too late to change the topic of my research topic to him… on weed.
Proof that D.A.R.E. really does work
mmmm….Isn’t it always the most poetic and supposedly the most outstanding literature written by people fucked up on some kind of drug?
I guess I better start smoking again. Damn.
And, how much are you paying for this education?
[...] Erie Blogs wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI decided to start a series giving you reasons why Graduate School is total bullshit… … On Thursday we had someone that was studying Walter Benjamin, she is taking his works and creating different digital art in as her response to some of his pieces…. [...]
I just started school. So I’m actually taking all those bullshit classes to start with. How bout paying $600.00 for one quick term class? And it’s Contemporary Health!!! I paid $600 to learn about the common cold!
this is completely off topic, and i apologize.
i just have the attention span of a raccoon.
it’s just that i noticed today for the first time that when you’re filling out to leave a comment, it says “URI” instead of “URL”
unless URI is some sort of weird disease that i haven’t heard of.
that’s it, isn’t it…..
I totallyyy agree. I go to grad school and write about cupcakes. Cupcakes. How much money did I spend on school again???
You should do your bukkake one on which is better, Chutney in England or Bukkake in Japan? Two competing sexual acts, which one will prevail?
Why are so many young people turning to the absolute worst role models in history? But hey at least it isn’t Che. Benjamin didn’t kill hundred of people. Or maybe he did I don’t know, still a shitty choice none the less.
I’m gonna write a paper about what an underrated genius Kevin Palmer is. And when no one knows who you are, then I’ll give them a withering look and say something like “Kevin Palmer is absolutely brilliant. His use of bourgeois references to make light of the modern preoccupation with inanity is unparalleled. Read a book, asshole.” And what that means is “Blah blah blah I’m paying a lot to be this big of a douche.”
I just stumbled upon this and it’s scary. I’ve just signed up for grad school classes and I’m not sure why, but I was expecting it to be less BS than my undergraduate experience.
> I can’t wait for my spring paper where I write on why
> bukkake is going to gusher in a new era of sex.
Fixed that for you.
No one can put it better than you. A great fun post and make the very sense.
[...] Reason Number 1 and 2 of Why Grad School is Bullshit [...]
Crack is whack
I did an e-mail exchange actually
A MFA will though
they have everything
Damn it…. I totally dropped the ball on that one
I so need to watch Half Baked right now
Make it out to Frederick Palowakski, please.
Definitely, all this talk of weed makes me want to be Jamaican!