Dear AWP Program Directors:
I’m mystified by something that happened this morning. Please help me make sense of it.
One of you complained that prospective students often ask her this:
What job am I going to get?
The overwhelming majority of the rest of you laughed as if to say this:
Oh, how silly! Why would someone ask something so crazy?
She went on to lament “consumer culture.”
Wait just a hot second. Are students not consumers of a product, albeit an intangible one? In return for their money, time and effort, they earn a degree and, one hopes, a job.
Why is this bad?
I talked to the woman who made the comment. She said she got her M.F.A. because she is an artist. I said:
But don’t you want to get paid for your artwork?
Then I found out she is a poet. Oh. And she represents a poetry degree program. OH!
That explains her situation, but what about the rest of you? I appreciate art for art’s sake, but it is better when you can make a living doing what you like best. No?
This seems to me to be another example of AWP acting like an ostrich.
Weren’t you just talking about the rising cost of college and increasing student debt load? Don’t you want to help students get a job so that they can pay off the college education that helped them get a job?
I’m confused. Please help me understand.
Sincerely,
Beth
Observe and report 
So a poet laments “consumer culture?” Color me shocked. You can bet if she somehow, against all that is logical in this world, made a boatload of money off of her particular art, she wouldn’t be so quick to turn her nose up at the consumers consuming her prose.
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So true.
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