What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?
From the Slope of Hope
Zero Hedge
Nov 9, 2019

[snip]

Earlier this week, after I dropped my wife and one of our children off at the airport, I decided to make a small detour on the way home. The airport was only about a mile away from the college I attended, so I thought I'd swing by the townhouse where my roommates and I used to live, just for old time's sake.

As I made the turn off the freeway down The Alameda, the memories came back swiftly. I pulled up close to the townhouse complex where we lived, but I had forgotten there was a gate leading into the parking lot, so I couldn't fulfill my desire to stroll around the place and think about old times. So I just parked in front of it, gazing up at the balcony where we used to throw water balloons at the unsuspecting traffic (Puerile, I know, but one of the better memories of my misspent youth).

I then began to ponder a question that had drifted through my mind before: did I get anything at all out of college? Should I have gone in the first place?

Now, as before, I decided the answer was a resounding "no".

Many eons ago, when I was actually approaching college age, the question as to whether or not I would go wasn't even considered. Everyone in my family had gone, including my parents, and I had it all figured out: I was going to get accepted into Stanford, along with my girlfriend, and we'd attend it together and have a grand old time. We talked about it incessantly, knowing without a doubt that this was Our Destiny.

The acceptance rate back then, about 12%, seemed like a pretty high hurdle (those of you in the back snickering, please refrain; I realize the acceptance rate these days is 4%). I was pretty much a "B+" student, and my test scores were good, but not amazing.

However, I had the unusual distinction of being a high school student who had his own software company and had about ten published books under his belt, so my achievements were unusual enough that I thought it would make up for these deficiencies. (My girlfriend, who had no such distinctions, had better grades than me, and somewhat better scores, but I figured her admission was less certain than my own).

Well, you can probably guessed what happened. She got in. And I didn't.