MFA Programs: Do They All Suck?

I met my sweet, smart, amazing husband at my MFA program, but that's not a recommendation for grad school, since no one else is going to meet anyone like him there. And other than that, I thought grad school was pretty much useless.

I was spoiled by a terrific undergraduate writing program at Knox College. Robin Metz and Robin Behn (who's coming to The Writers Place in Kansas City this fall! Yay!) were inspiring, dedicated teachers.

I went to grad school because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't really understand that a corporate job, like I have now, was an option. I planned to go to grad school, work random service jobs for several years while publishing a book or two of poetry, and then become a creative writing professor. I still think being a creative writing professor would be cool, but looking back, I don't think this was the smartest life plan. That's one thing places like Knox could do better: advise people for non-academic career paths.

My graduate program had a good reputation at the time, but I don't know why. Professors sexually harassed students. More offensive to me, they didn't always seem interested in writing. My main poetry teacher dismissed my inherent romantic lyricism as passe. It took years for me to get my groove back again (still, my own fault for losing it in the first place). After I wrote a couple of sexual, brutal poems, she encouraged me to write more, because she thought they would be popular. She was right--people do like that stuff because it's "edgy"--but that was terrible advice for me. More on that in another post, maybe.

There were a few nice people in the program. (One of them, who is brilliant, is going to give me some feedback on a chapbook!) Most of them were not nice. Also, a bunch of people had horrible addiction problems (alcohol and/or heroin), and I felt for them, but it was depressing.

I've heard a lot of people say that their MFA programs were really competitive, but I don't know if that was true of mine or not. It's possible that it was and that I was completely oblivious to it.

After I got my MFA and needed a job, I sometimes left the advanced degree off my resume, because it made me look like someone who was too much of a special snowflake to do normal work. There have been a few times when it's been nice to have an MFA, but not enough times to make it worth three years of my life. Not even close.

I learned way more about good writing after grad school: from people I worked with, from conferences, and from people on the internet.

When people are pondering whether they should go into an MFA program, I tell them they shouldn't. But maybe most MFA graduates are more positive about their experience than I am.