A Degree in Learning

This is in response, or in addition, to Robert C. Detweiler’s “Colleges Shouldn’t Forget Humanities” (July 21).

“What are you going to do with that?”

My four years as a matriculant were spent attempting to answer that question. Yes, I was the anathema of colleges and universities today: I was a teen-age English major.

It seemed to me that my fellow students (business majors), were possessed and obsessed: possessed by the hallowed, coveted “A,” obsessed with getting out of school as soon as possible to get a job, to enter the “real world.”

My purpose while studying was not solely to receive an “A.” My purpose for studying in general was not solely to get a job.

Believe it or not.

I chose English for my major because I enjoyed thinking, reading and, most especially, writing.

Good Lord, would you believe my minor was in philosophy? That I was one course away from a minor in French? And that I studied music too.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Well, I’ll tell you.

Now I’m studying to be a high school teacher. Not because it’s the only thing I’m qualified to do, but because it’s the thing I want to do. Sure, pay is lousy. Sure, respect is minimal. Sure, I probably won’t own a BMW.

But I enjoy teaching.

Of course, I could have saved some precious time and chosen education for my major, so I could get out in that “real world” a bit sooner. Does that mean my studies in 17th-, 18th-, 19th- and 20th-Century literature and poetry were a waste of time? Does that mean my sincere and often hopeless attempts at understanding Immanuel Kant were useless? Does that mean that the long hours spent reading Camus, Sartre, Gide, Collette, et al, in their original language, were pointless? And the extra hours reading and writing music were futile?

Not in the least. For one, my subjects and verbs agree.

So I’m 23 years old and as of yet I don’t have a “real job.” Big deal. I have the remainder of my short, sometimes tumultuous, sometimes torpid life to get a “real job,” maybe make some “real money.” I’m not plagued with bills for VCR’s; I dress fashionably, though I shop at thrift stores for my clothes; I’m content to spend the evening reading and writing, rather than to make the innocuous decision of which cable television channel to watch. And yes--I’m happy.

That’s what I’ve done with that.

ROBERT DRISCOLL

San Diego