So, I just took a phone call from someone who identified himself as a freshman in the College of Humanities at my alma mater, the University of Utah. I knew instantly that it was a plea for money; I’ve fended off quite a few of them over the years, and I can recognize the signs before the caller even finishes identifying themselves. Yes, I’m one of those bad alumni who don’t give back. I rarely have any spare cubits to give, and, depending on what kind of mood I’m in at the moment they call, I tend to have a somewhat jaundiced opinion of my college education, and of the expectation that I ought to provide the place with any more funding than I already gave during my five years as a student there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong. The U is a good school, and I don’t regret going there, in a general sense. I have a lot of good memories of the experience and I still believe there is an inherent value in a liberal education, in so far as it gives you a broad understanding of what underpins the society we live in. However, I often feel like my degree has been of little practical<\/i> value, either in finding a job or in finding myself. You know, all those things the recruiters and guidance counselors say a degree is supposed to do for you?<\/p>\n
I was told an English degree would open all kinds of doors, that it was the best general-purpose subject for those of us who weren’t quite sure what to do when we grew up. Honestly, though, I personally have found it to be pretty much useless out in the real world. I graduated still not knowing what the hell I wanted to do with my life, or how to go about figuring it out. I still haven’t figured it out at the age of 40, and I’ve been despairing for the past several years that I ever will. And the jobs my English degree has gotten me haven’t exactly been the path to riches, either. Let’s just say that proofreaders aren’t in the same tax bracket as investment bankers. I sometimes wonder if majoring in English didn’t just make my plight worse, by instilling me with the idea that I had all these vaguely defined possibilities rather than forcing me into a specific course of action. Certainly I’ve had to defend my degree to a lot of job interviewers who’ve thought all I know how to do is read books the average person has never heard of. (A not-entirely untrue assessment, to be honest.)<\/p>\n
I know that declaring an English major was my decision. And I accept that my pattern of just falling into whatever jobs have come along rather than pursuing a definite career is my own damn fault. I don’t blame the U of U for the myriad ways my life has disappointed me. But on the other hand, I can’t help but feel like I was sold a bill of goods that day I talked to someone in the English department about whether I ought to matriculate there. Looking back, I could’ve used some genuine help<\/i> with that decision, and some realistic advice about the job market and how to actually sell whatever I learned in Orson Spencer Hall. Instead, I got a bunch of feel-good bullshit about how we humanities majors could do anything. And to my everlasting regret, I bought<\/i> it. I bought it right up until my first “grown-up” job interview, the one in which I realized just how completely clueless I actually was about the workings of the non-academic world. That was a humiliation I still haven’t gotten over…<\/p>\n
Oh, but I was talking about this fundraising call, wasn’t I?<\/p>\n
I usually hang up on these guys as quickly as I can. It isn’t just my sporadic finances, or my ambivalence about my BA. I also resent the feeling of intrusion when a stranger calls me up, interrupts whatever I’m doing, and asks for money. It’s the principle of the thing, you know? The gall. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. And I also really<\/i> hate the approach most of these guys take, the fast-talking, slick hustler routine that doesn’t let you get a word in until he’s read through his whole damn script and put you on the spot. I used to feel guilty that I’d let them go on and on like that, only to say “no” when they finished. I’ve gotten over that. Now I tell them it’s a bad time for me to donate, or that I’ve recently become unemployed and don’t have the money to spare. (This has even been true a couple of times.) Once, I angrily told somebody to buy himself a watch and call back after Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/i> was over. But the bottom line is, I hang up on these people as soon as I can, and they don’t get anything from me.<\/p>\n
Tonight, though… the kid sounded so damn earnest<\/i>, and he was so natural and just plain human<\/i> in his speech, without the slightest trace of smarmy hucksterism, that I went along with him. Against all odds, I found myself having an actual conversation with this kid even as I waited for the inevitable sales pitch. He asked me if I’d kept up on the College’s news, if I’d been on campus in a while, if I’d seen the recent renovations to the Marriott Library. I told him about how I used to hang out there during my own freshman year, killing a ridiculously huge block of downtime between my daylight courses and an evening class I’d foolishly scheduled. He asked what I considered my best classes and experiences, and who my favorite professors had been, and I named the Honors program, a class called Intellectual Traditions of the West, and Dr. Bill Siska from the film department. He enthusiastically told me he was taking Siska’s telecourse on film history, and I was pleased to learn the guy is still around.<\/p>\n
I knew exactly what the kid was up to, of course. Get the old guy reminiscing, make him feel all sentimental and nostalgicky before putting the bite on him. I’ll be damned if it didn’t work, though, even though I was fully conscious of what was happening. For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long — maybe the first time ever<\/i> — I made a donation to the College of Humanities to support… whatever the hell it is they do these days. Probably building a new center to study the semiotics and racial-gender politics of Wii games, for all I know.<\/p>\n
I hung up the phone feeling like something of a sucker. But not too<\/i> much of one. Mostly, I was curious to see what they’ve done with the old Marriott Library, and filled with good memories of my freshman year, which was probably my best year at college, now that I think about it. If I’d been wearing a hat, I would’ve doffed it to that kid on the other end of the phone (I choose to believe he was what he claimed and appeared to be, incidentally).<\/p>\n
Well played, kid. Well played…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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