/lit/ - Literature

Only the leisure class has the impetus to spend time with the arts. Who would have guessed?

>>15180922
I’m so fucking ready for guillotine time it’s not even funny

>>15180902
Fyi, some advice on netiquette: all-caps is considered 'shouting' on the internet.

>Literally every good author
read more
going to a prestigious school won't make you a good writer by itself

>AND I MISSED IT BC IM NOT A BROWN NOSING FAGGOT
you may not be "brown nosing" (whatever that means) but you're still a faggot

>>15180970
Name a few that haven’t in the last few hundred years

You can backdoor your way in through twitter and blog shit if you're good enough at forming connections.

What? 99.5% of good writers didn't go.

>>15180970
ESL detected.

>>15180902
Gene Wolfe was a state school chad

>Set your goal to be one of the greatest authors of human history
>get disappointed
Why are you people like this?

Who the fuck went to university lmao? In my country Italy I can think of maybe 2 good (but not in the higher tier) authors that went, and it wasn't even a mega prestigious one

>>15180902
You can transfer into Penn's extension school. They don't differentiate between their extension students and normal students in any way for lib arts undergrad, you get the same degree at the end.

>>15181063
I have a lot of enjoyable experiences but enjoy very few of them. my best guess is i'm horribly depressed and have no choice but the set my goal to be the "greatest in human history" or kms and when that inevitably fails I also kms

that picture gave me an erection

>>15181060
Unironically this makes me feel better, as someone in a similar boat as OP

>>15181166
Why do you want to be the best? Why do you want to do things that you know you will fail at? Is this psychological problem related to the fact that you are a "brown-nosing fagget"?

>tfw college drop out but biography is fucked up enough that I could have a wikipedia page with the best
Now I just need to write something...

>>15181318
Winner takes it all.
Loser takes the fall.

>>15181331
You can get a PhD just for publishing something sometimes if it's hot enough.

>>15181060
>tfw Gene Wolf dropped out of my state school

>>15180902
Wasn't Faulkner a college dropout from a family that wasn't even all that bourgeois?

>>15180902
Faulkner dropped out of old piss lmao

>>15180902
>I’M IN A FUCKING STATE SCHOOL
>FINANCE
> IM NOT A BROWN NOSING FAGGOT
fuck man, i feel like i wrote this post.
Even in finance since we are fucked. goldman sachs, ubs, morgan stanley, citadel, kpmg or ey wont fucking hire non-ivies. No investmant banking, venture capital or private equity will read our resumes.

I've learned to much from books and the internet that it puts my own school in the dust. I really believe that secondary education is only required for fucking retards who can't study on their own or have no sense of curiosity. Nothing irks my fucking fist than nepotism, privilege, and the elitism present in post-college industries.

This distaste in my mouth is even further exemplified in the failings of universities nationwide trying to handle the global pandemic.It is fucking cringe and I hope that our generation will look down upon the idiots that so effortlessly shills out money to universities. With my own knowledge in finance, a degree from a good school is a bad investment unless you love the allure of brown-nosing so much to pay for a 4-year networking event.
>pic related, how I vie all the business cucks i have to buy lunch for just for them to tell me that they will "keep their eyes open and ear to the ground for me"

>>15180967
Ha ha! I did not know that. I am laughing out loud.

>>15180902
Yes, the publishing industry is converged and has been for over a century; no, this is not a permanent obstruction, provided you produce quality.

>>15181126
Who are some good Italian writers who didn't go to uni?

>>15180922
No, the lesiure class and the vagrant class. I'm going for the second one. I'll be a homeless poet.

>>15181592
>Be vagrant outsider artist
>Get pissed on your whole life
>Maybe, potentially, in the future elite cucks will take in interest in your work and make loads of money writing derivative works and books about them.
Fate worse than death.

Drop out of school
>And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

>>15181603
It's a kind of immortality, if you actually care about your art you wouldn't view it this way

>>15181318
Not him but
>Why do you want to be the best?
I can't accept my own mediocrity for whatever reason.
>Why do you want to do things that you know you will fail at?
I have that "go big or go home" mentality that I can't get out of my head.
>Are you a "brown-nosing fagget"?
Idk what that means but yes.

Is there any cure for this? I'm dead serious. I'm ready to suck your dick for a piece of advice on how to fix my brain and curb my ambitions to a manageable size. They've already distorted my perception of reality to the point where I'm either the best in eight years or an absolute failure.

>>15181368
for real? that's inspirational because years of 4chan has honed my ability to write hot takes on niche subjects

>>15181657
A great man is one that can Master himself and not suck peoples dicks for advice. Don't walk in dark alleys at night time.

>>15181657
You need to realise your limitations, also realise that in certain domains there isn't exactly a "greatest" but a large category of "greats", and maybe you can be in there but given that you're wasting your time whining on 4channel instead of working on your magnum opus I doubt it very much.

Get an IQ test, a reliable one from MENSA or some other qualified institution.

>>15180902
>>15181592
Then you shall turn your very life into a form of art. Your failings shall span the spectrum from monumental to ridiculous, with marked steps on various levels of the piteous and the grotesque in between. You will vie for your peak--a momentary lancing of the membrane separating the vile from the sublime--only to splash back into the mud of the mundane, for a few more twitches up to the end of your tragically ludicrous existence. Aim to sift the elusive nuggets of the sublime to be guessed under this sea of filth we call life--only to see them dissolve and drip away between your gnarly fingers--yet another failure. Make it your rending swansong.

>>15180902
Bros, just imagine four women grouped around a phone examining a picture of your cock. Isn't that really arousing? Wish I had received this snap.

There are probably more great authors who never attended college than those who attended any individual Ivy League school, if not all of them combined. Hell, Princeton has produced one noteworthy author.

Pessoa was a drop out

I go to an Ivy League and yet here I am.

>>15183030
Same anon. Which school? Columbia here

>>15180902
Max Stirner
>Waaaaaaaaaaaa
Shut up bitch

>>15180931
They'll get what's coming to them in this life and then next.

>>15180902
Are you me?

>>15180902
>literally junkies write better than me

>>15180902
I didn't know Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Baudelaire, Li Bai, Faulkner, Hafiz, Sterne, Musil, Auerbach and Kraus were Ivy league alumni but thanks for enlightening me.

>>15181576
I bet you must be rolling on the floor laughing right now.

>>15181564
>goldman sachs
I went to a state school and people we getting recruited by Goldman. You must be in some kind of toothless backwater, because companies hire people from the top of the class at state schools all the time.

I’m gonna be real with you niggas for a sec here: FUCK academia. They’re diploma mills, indoctrination centers designed to shit out drones, spread propaganda and make groupthink the norm. These crusty tenured professors, when was the last time they made any substancial contribution to society? They are content with main ring the status quo, with circlejerking about how le sophisticated they are, their worthless theses are only token rebellion. Academia is a joke, a place for rich WASPs and Jews to mentally masturbate too and to justify their worldview that anyone who didn’t attend these overpriced debt machines is a piece of shot. FUCK THEM

>>15183502
Okay, so what should an erudite young man do instead?

>>15183510
circlejerk on a contrarian anime website with failures about how people better than you in academia are circlejerking while pretending to read and thinking you are better than everyone else.

OP, that trend broke down when they started admitting students on the basis of their skin and party affiliation. That shit means nothing anymore. Those schools are conveyor belts to consulting jobs and that’s about it now. Transfer if you want, switch your major, and start writing.

>>15180980
John Bunyan

>>15183510
Join the military. I sincerely think that’s the best place for young men today.

imagine going to college lol, I haven't set foot in a classroom since the 10th grade

>>15183494
They get recruited to work back office and middle office stuff though. They don’t get recruited to do the high flyer stuff. Trust me though. You don’t want to do that stuff anyway.

>>15181659
Yes. My mom dropped out of her masters and the university just gave her a PhD later because she made a movie and they wanted to hire her to teach creative writing.

>>15183569
Yes, goyim, die for our causes!

>>15181657
This was me until I had a full existential crisis. Everything radically changed for me then.

>>15180902
>he didn't "network" with publishers and editors
>he thought getting a book deal was about writing ability

LMAO good luck next time

>>15181564
I went to a state school and got into investment banking. However, I was the only one I knew and it was an extremely miserable experience. My advice to you is to get out of finance and do something worthwhile instead.

>>15183510
go to school anyway obviously. in general, you won't be able to get a white collar job without a bachelor's degree. just don't have delusions that you're going to school to 'learn'

>>15183502
I’m considering graduate school but in all honesty the only reason I’m even considering it is because I already got a bachelor’s degree that I didn’t really want so I feel like I now have to go all the way in something else to correct it.

>>15182998
real happy fella that one

>>15180902
Not having an elite pedigree becomes a selling point if you persevere long enough. You’re like a world-weary sage, whereas someone who goes HYP/Oxbridge -> grad school -> ivory tower, they end up being seen as having major blind spots and being pampered.

>>15183502
Mostly true, but for the sake of truth I must mention in my experience studying mathematics in France, while in some respect a deadening experience in a rather too elitist institution, has allowed me to meet various interesting persons as classmates or professors.

>>15183449
> just be rich and famous 2000 years ago bro

>>15183676
This, they miss what actual life is like.

Do they have things they can comment on? Sure, but they miss being a normal person. You should be able to relate better.

>>15183696
Except for Homer and Li Bai none of them was alive more than 1000 years ago and six of them were born after 1800. None of them were famous before their started writing except to a very limited extent Dante, and several of them were middle-class of downright working class.

But I suppose accuracy doesn't matter to you it's no surprise that you would feel dwarfed by the idea of someone attending a private school.

Join the military or Peace Corps after graduating. Use TA while in and the GI Bill while out if you go military.

>>15180902
>A FUCKING STATE SCHOOL
Is it at least the certified /lit/ one?

>>15183569
>>15183607

I’m graduating top of my class from a very prestigious school. I can go to grad school or do some white collar work, but I really can’t imagine socializing with these people anymore. I hate it. What branch/MOS do you recommend for an ambition young guy in the military? I just want interesting, adventurous work that allows for promotion also. I know I’ll never be able to climb the corporate ladder at a bank with all of Schlomo’s nephews

>>15183975
Personally, I’m only interested in army and navy and going in as an officer, in which case you don’t actually get to pick your job. You fill out your top 3 choices and you get assigned based on your performance. The officer process takes a while so talk to a recruiter sooner rather than later if you’re interested.

>>15184407
Can you give me a rundown or somewhere to read more about becoming an officer? Why are you interested in being an officer anon?

>>15181564
>kpmg or ey wont fucking hire non-ivies

What the fuck are you talking about? KPMG and EY both hire from decent state schools.

Shoulda gone to Bennington. Bret Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt both went there. It's definitely no Ivy.

>>15183569
Why? I’m in right now and I don’t really agree.

>>15183592
Grow up.

>>15184407
Correct, you basically pick a career code, not a specific job.

>>15184499
I’ll hang out in the thread for a bit if you have specific questions. Currently USAF, working for Space Force. Your best bet for general information is talking to a recruiter. Most of them aren’t great, so call a few and try to find someone who doesn’t sound too brain dead. The DoD is massive, no one person can give you all the opportunities that are out there.

>>15180902
Alexander Pope wasn't allowed into Cambridge or Oxford due to being Catholic. He was self-taught in Latin and ancient Greek and my nigga single handily carried English lit for an entire century.

>>15183951
Based - I went to University of Iowa. I got my master's in accountancy there.

I got my undergrad degree at an expensive private liberal arts college.

>>15183975
>I know I’ll never be able to climb the corporate ladder at a bank with all of Schlomo’s nephews

Where do you get these ideas? I know a lot of bankers, and few of them are Jewish. This isn't like things were 100 years ago where you had all-jewish banks because protestant banks wouldn't hire them. Even the historically Jewish banks like Goldman Sachs aren't Jewish firms anymore. Just look at the latest Goldman partner classes - there aren't a lot of Jewish names there.

If you think working with Jews is bad though, wait until you see who you'll be leading as a military officer. I have a coworker who was in the Navy, he makes it sound like it's filled with the kids who took remedial classes in high school.

>>15184610
Thanks anon. Can you describe a bit what you do for Space Force and what exciting opportunities they have? Why did you pick them? I’ll try and reach out to some recruiters

>>15184650
I go to school with these people. The vast majority of “white people” at my school are Jewish and that’s the same for many of these banks, especially who become MDs. Sure, there is a good number of Catholics at some of these banks. I have no clue why you’re saying Goldman Sachs isn’t Jewish though. All the white people there are basically Jewish. Jews tend to like me as their good goy, but I don’t think I can deal with their sociopath behavior in an actual work place anymore.

>working with retards
What’s wrong with being a tard wrangler? Tards can be fun. Anyways you should never be fraternizing with your subordinates, just muddies relationships. I understand officers are generally pretty smart in military though.

>>15184754
>>15184650
These are the types of people who work at Goldman who aren’t Jews

https://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/meet-our-people/richard-profile.html
>I’m a hispanic who reads math and have been open about sucking cocks as a side gig my entire time here!!
Disgusting

>>15180902
>Literally every good author’s wiki

This is literally untrue

>>15180902
Knausgård went to public unicersity

>>15184789
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/29/business/no-longer-a-wasp-preserve.html

This is a pretty old article, but it's the only one I could find that gave any sort of percentages. Jews are definitely in the minority at i-banking firms.

Looking at Goldman's most recent MD class, it doesn't appear to be highly Jewish based on the names: https://news.efinancialcareers.com/us-en/3002658/goldman-sachs-managing-director-list

>>15183569
went to the army for a year of mandatory service before i started studying. It honestly changed my life and made me a better person.

>>15184650
I’m >>15183606
it’s absolutely true.

>>15180931
>>15183243
why would you want death upon those pilgrims of high culture that have been blessed with aesthetic taste and superb understanding of our culture? who's left when you've massacred every priest, artist and philosopher?

>>15184499
Go to the Army/Navy website. Everything is there. Basically, you contact a recruiter and if you’re interested, you submit a packet to be selected. You go to boards and if you’re selected, you go to OCS where they teach you the basics. That’s more or less how it works across all branches. /k/ has a /meg/ thread that answers questions for people enlisting or commissioning as officers as long as it’s stuff that’s not obviously available online. I’m honestly interested for many reasons that would be difficult to articulate here fully. I honestly waver it on and I would join another military overseas if I could, but I’m already 27 and I’ve felt compelled to join for a long time.

>>15180902
Critical thinking is truly dead and I shouldn't be surprised considering the age demo on this site. The only thing you should be angry at the system for is the fact you were taught to believe, and still believe, the false narrative of education needing to be 'taught' to you in a classroom setting to be successful. What is a school degree? Nothing more than an inspection note of supposed 'quality/processing' created by a system of control. The anger you have right now is going in the wrong direction and fruitless 'it's not fair' affair that all those looking for external excuses to fail seek. Redirect it towards the problem and your goal; becoming a good author. Seek out information on learning writing and create a structure of study focused on your needs. Please pick up some philosophy books to teach yourself critical thinking while you're at it. The internet is so full of information you'll need ti to find out what is useful for you and what is not. Time to put down the spoon and begin to garden for knowledge.

>>15184939
you nigga

>>15183569
I'm in the military, no it's not

>>15185743
How come? Are you an officer? Where’s the best place for young men then?

>>15180902

The fuck? Finance is the most based and litpilled major there is, next to a really good Political Science major taken in a non-propagandistic environment.

>>15185743
Care to explain why?

>>15185743
How come? Are you an officer? Where’s the best place for young men then?

>>15184754
>What’s wrong with being a tard wrangler? Tards can be fun. Anyways you should never be fraternizing with your subordinates, just muddies relationships. I understand officers are generally pretty smart in military though.

Being a tard wrangler is not fun. It's like running a goddamn daycare.

>>15181647
It's not immortality at all, it's fame that's come long after it would do you any joy.

Your work long outlive true, but your works would have outlived you anyway. The world is full of buildings built by men that no one knows the name of, and there are libraries with books that no one has read in hundreds of years. You don't live on with it, that is a cope. The fact that someone knows your name and can picture your face isn't extended life, really they don't know you at all.

>>15184863
Norwegian high-school makes American Ivy Leagues look like trash.

>>15186062
"Political science", "political philosophy", "politics" or any such degree is 100% Kool-Aid-Klass that's chiefly designed for the next generation of propagandists.

>>15180902
If I were a publisher dealing with the mountain of shit that came in, I'd probably start by reading anything from an Ivy League grad or Iowa Writer's Workshop grad. Anything from a community college writer would probably go into the trash.

>>15180902
Apply to a reputable, funded MFA program. Thats how it works these days.

In the past pedigree was important, but now, for better or worse, its not.

>>15180902
>credentialism
kek burgers are a joke

>>15180902
Borges only finished high school and he's now part of the canon.

>>15186955
Do you need a BA to do an MFA? What about a BS? Would you hampered at all coming from a social science?

>>15183578
me but 9th

>>15186977

>>15186977
There are probably more canonized authors from the 20th century who never went to college than those who attended Princeton, Brown, and Cornell combined.

Ivy leagues and higher ed in general are fucking joke now.

>tfw thinking about enrolling in a social science related PhD program
>could probably get the degree while working (not that uncommon where I live)
>also thinking about just staying at my current job and trying to become a (fiction) writer on my free time
Not sure what to do tbqh lads.

>>15187063
I can imagine few worse ways to spend 4-6 years than getting a PhD.

>>15187063
Which social science? Somewhat similar situation myself.

>>15180902
Nigga chill

>>15183243
Based.

>>15180931
>>15183243
Based.
>>15184939
Cringe

>>15187063
i’m in a social science PhD program rn—which field are you thinking?

>>15180902
You don't HAVE to go to school, anon. You can drop out whenever you like.

god I wish I didn't drop out of engineering

>>15183951
The Iowa Writers' Workshop is harder to get into than Harvard's MFA program. It's elite.

If you attend you will get your work in front of agents and people that matter in the publishing world.

>>15187131
>>15187463
I believe the field would fall under accounting or management accounting in broad terms. I'm interested in how managers of organizations produce and use financial, operational or strategic data/information in their decision making.

Yes I'm aware that there are likely around three people in the world who care about this shit but I personally find it interesting.

Cormac mccarthy didn't go to fancy college
DFW went to Amherst because he was a legacy. He got into harvard for a phd program but Ivy league grad school doesn't count. Same with Gass and Cornell (Cornell is a joke in the Ivies)
Don Delillo went to a state school I think...the list goes on

quit being a little bitch and feeling sorry for yourself

>>15187588
that is interesting—i study organizational theory and managerial behavior in low-skill/low-wage jobs from a sociological/policy angle. i work with a lot of management/operations scholars, actually.

>>15187603
>Cormac mccarthy didn't go to fancy college
I don't even think he has a degree.

Having an Ivy league degree does open doors, but getting published without one certainly isn't hopeless. Just look at how many authors on the NY Times bestseller list have Ivy League degrees.

>>15187675
I'd love to hear more about your experiences. Stuff like how the academic life actually works day-to-day, what you like or dislike about it, how easy/hard it is to get articles published etc.

Just about any insight you think somebody who's considering getting into a similar field might want to know would be much appreciated.

>>15187511
Why? I honestly wish I would’ve dropped out of my degree

>>15180980
Phillip K Dick
Don DeLillo
Richard Ford
Faulkner
Fitzgerald
Kafka
Kraznohorki (lazslo)

Most of the good ones didn't.

>>15187786
no problem! okay, so first i'll tell you what i love. i have a great advisor who supports me in all of the ways i need to be supported, but also gives me a ton of freedom in how i conduct my research. a lot of what the work we do is politically significant/sensitive so that means a lot to me. i like that i can spend hours a day reading what i love and exploring my passions. i come from a quant background so being able to do qual work/mixed studies is really nice. it sounds like your field may be workable from a mixed-methods angle too. i personally do a lot of interview work, which i am very fond of. you'll have tons of books on your subject of interest at your fingertips, and you're being paid to read them. it's a good deal.

what i do not love: you get bogged down in side work, like TA requirements and shit. TAing sucks huge balls. it's a drain on your time and you end up having to do things you could not give two shits about. sometimes you'll have to read up on operations literature that is of zero interest to you for your research, too, but i hate this less than i hate TAing. depending on who your advisor is, you may hate being a research assistant too. i lucked out. administration is disorganized at almost every school and sometimes they'll accidentally screw you, so stay on top of that. you'll have to do a lot of goofy shit usually like organizing research meetings and hosting conference calls and all of that—operational research/managerial/org theory stuff is usually pretty collaborative.

my day-to-day: i usually read for a minimum of five hours, and i try to write for one or two (i have a loose-deadline paper rn) but when i am churning out a paper i often spend 8+ hours in the library reading and writing. you'll probably do a lot of work in statistical software because the field goes nuts for like, r/stata/sas visualizations. i read a lot of legal garbage, labor history, and operations lit, as well as more theoretical stuff. on my particular project, i meet with my colleagues in some capacity every 2-3 weeks to share findings and collaborate, which takes about two hours. this is pretty typical for the field, which is why i share. i am publishing my first paper later this year - publishing is kind of difficult in my field but if you find a research network or have a supportive advisor you'll probably be able to turn out a predoctoral paper too.

my advice: COME UP WITH A WORK AND READING SCHEDULE! YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT! block out your time. it REALLY helps. and please, you probably know this, but research your program and research your advisor because you want to make sure that they are a good fit for you. also, don't be afraid to reach out to scholars whose work interests you via e-mail—you'll find they often respond, and if they're huge big assholes then you know, "ahh yes, this guy is an asshole so…whatever i guess." submit things to relevant conferences/look for research networks bc there are lots in mgmt field

>>15187883
I mean the other side of this for ivy leagues:
Lowell
Wallace Stevens
Frost
DFW (amherst counts)

But honestly, almost anyone with anything interesting to say, didn't go to an ivy league.

>>15187883
>Fitzgerald
Went to fucking PRINCETON

>>15187994
Huh, might explain why he's full of soulless prose.

>>15187961
>DFW (amherst counts)

No, anon, Amherst absolutely does not count. I don't even know why you'd even think that.

>>15188100
Amherst isn't an Ivy, but it's just as well respected as one.

>>15188110
Assuming we're talking about the liberal arts college and not the state school.

>>15188110
KEK, Lowell, Wallace Stevens, and Frost all went to Harvard. There's no possible comparison there. They're multiple leagues apart.

>>15181126
That's for Americans. Chad Euro writers are working class plebs that finish a random uni and work as journalists or teachers

Theres a decent amount who went to shit schools or didnt even go at all

>>15181564
Classic autist thinking. Uni filters out those that don't like to work with others

>>15188121
Amherst College is definitely comparable to Harvard. They're both ultra-selective elite schools.

>>15187883
Kafka went to law school but he hated it was a bad student and cheated on his exams (by his own admission).

>>15188208
Missing my point entirely - good thinkers definitely go to great schools, great thinkers sometimes go to school.

>>15188121
Read Amherst's wikipedia - they produce the same # of Marshall, Rhodes, Nobel prize winners etc as Harvard with like 1/10 the student body. Williams, Wesleyan, and Amherst are all incredible schools

>>15184540
Can confirm - I work at PwC and went to a decent state school (undergrad).

>>15180902
Melville was self educated. Your problem is that you're a faggot.

>>15185106
Based spooner

>>15188172
Amherst is literally NOT AN IVY. Stanford is more of an Ivy than Cornell but it's still not an Ivy

>>15188624
read
>>15181603
(best reply in the thread)

>>15188208
Uhm.... based?

>>15188645
It's obviously not an Ivy, but it's just as good as one.

>>15188277
>tfw got rejected by wesleyan

>>15187925
Thank you very much, anon.

>>15186459
at my Norwegian high school, the quality of teachers varied. Even more in "ungdomsskolen" where many teachers where shockingly bad even tho I live close to Oslo.

>>15187961
>amherst counts

>>15180902
Life after college is not always what you expect. Do something big bold and out of character for you, could jolt your mind into a new way of seeing things

>>15180902
going to college in general seems to be fun, but unless you get an interesting teacher or go to a prestigious university, it's kinda waste of time and money