User Comments

1. 

   9/12/08

   melindaville

   What a great piece! I left you a comment. You really made me smile.

   [reply]
   1. 

      9/12/08

      ThriftShopRomantic

      Thanks, Melinda!-- I'd love it, if you could, if you'd share a little about your experience regarding the academic journey you mentioned.
      
      What did you find helpful or particularly frustrating?
   2. 

      9/12/08

      melindaville

      I loved my undergraduate education--I really did. For the most part, I had wonderful professors who were great teachers. My biggest frustration was in being given 'busywork' that was not that meaningful. I teach college today and I usually give students one meaningful project to work on throughout the entire term, rather than loads of little papers where they don't really delve right in.
      
      Graduate school opened up a lot of frustrations for me. In particular, the professor I was working with (as his research assistant) would have me do the majority of work on a presentation or a paper and then give me little (or no) credit at all. I stayed up for 3 days putting together a bang-up presentation and he took my name off the title page (even though I had done all the work, I listed myself as the second author). That was totally uncool.
      
      Today, when my students are asking me about grad school, I always tell them to look at the articles of the professor they are interested in working with. If there are other names (than the professor's) on the articles, that's a great sign; it means that she/he is willing to share credit. If there is not--STAY AWAY.
   3. 

      9/12/08

      ThriftShopRomantic

      Oh, I can absolutely see that happening, too.
      
      But it's refreshing to see someone take their less than stellar experiences and turn them around into solid education/lessons learned for their own students.
   4. 

      9/12/08

      melindaville

      I have definitely modeled my teaching after professors who I appreciated and also by those I didn't! You can learn from both bad and good experiences.
   5. 

      9/12/08

      ThriftShopRomantic

      I absolutely believe that. In fact, I pretty much blog that way every day.
2. 

   9/12/08

   aningeniousname

   Another great piece Thrift, I will have to check out those Fletch books I didn't know the Chevy Chase films were taken from books.
   As for writing courses I would never take one because I suspected they were exactly as you described, I think one of the reasons there are so many poor novels out there is precisely because of classes like that. It's all very well holding up Hemingway as a great writer but the whole reason he was a great writer is because he was Hemingway. I'm a massive fan of John Steinbeck but I would never attempt to do what he does because that's not me its him, it's like the old adage write what you know.

   [reply]
   1. 

      9/12/08

      ThriftShopRomantic

      The first Fletch book is fairly similar plot-wise to the first film. The others have that same sort of tone.
      
      I don't think the second Fletch movie was based on an actual book.
      
      And really, the kind of experience you have with these courses is largely dependent on the teacher.
      
      Would the teacher try to learn your goals and work with you?
      
      Or did the professor assume you were just a ball of clay they could mold into what was considered acceptable at the moment?
      
      It made a huge difference. At that time, I think I learned more about what didn't work for me than what did.
      
      Which is still useful knowledge. But not as rewarding, as finding your real writing passion.