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It's interesting that the author pursued a degree in literature and that's what ultimately pushed her away from that career path. It seems to be a common theme where a formal education in creative arts makes people want to do something else in life, anything else. I've had acquaintances with a musical background and eventually they went to do something else, including IT. From what an old buddy told me once, most graduates of a musical school learn to hate music and quit that vocation past graduation. In the opposite fashion, I've never had a literary education and I'm feeling more and more drawn to this line of work. I'm not sure if I want to make a complete switch though, software engineering and startups are just too exciting to give it all up. Somehow it feels I can accomplish more and make a better contribution to the society with my honed programming skills than with words, but I might be wrong about it. For now, I'm just writing essays every now and then, publishing them on my blog and that seems to be enough. One word of advice in relation to all of this. Don't shy away from reading foreign literature. I know that for many native English speakers other languages simply don't exist in their world, but you're missing out on an incredible body of thoughts and ideas that might expand your vision borders. Don't be stuck in your English silo, learn some foreign language and go exploring. And no, a translation is not the same, it's devoid of the original energy. That's why people are often unimpressed by what before a translation was a profound piece of work. You can't translation energy. |
As you suggest, the ideal path is majoring in something that will get you a job that pays decent to handsomely; and minor in something that will feed your soul. It sounds trite, but it is the best option and one few take from the people I've encountered.
I don't mean to burst your bubble but you might be romanticising a liberal arts education. It saddens me to say but I know UC Berkeley lit grads who still write like high-schoolers.
Literature doesn't teach you to write. Creative writing doesn't teach you to think. Forget about journalism. University writing style guides don't keep up with modern society. You have to tailor your liberal arts experience. Classical education taught the trivium to students at an early age so they can get a head start on teaching them how to think.
Luckily computer science teaches logic indirectly, but philosophically, it is only one type of logic. Writing involves many types of logic. But logic alone is not good writing. That depends on your audience and purpose. Good writing sometimes requires writing grammatically incorrect sentences. Good writing mirrors the natural flow of your reader's language, including phraseology, diction, and cause and effect. It has to jibe with them. But again, there are different purposes for a given writing composition.
When I got my first writing job, I was naively proud to say I was a writer. Now I'm embarrassed by it and just say what field or department I work in.