{"id":821,"date":"2006-01-28T08:52:09","date_gmt":"2006-01-28T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/821\/"},"modified":"2006-01-28T08:54:20","modified_gmt":"2006-01-28T13:54:20","slug":"821","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/821","title":{"rendered":"Get Smart"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College<\/a> in Annapolis, MD from 1993-1995. At the end of that period, I was awarded a Master of Arts, Liberal Arts degree (we nicknamed it the evil Spanish woman degree, or M.A.L.A.).<\/p>\n

During four different job interviews (between 1995 and 1997), the person on the other side of the desk would look at my r\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9sum\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9, get a furrowed brow, and ask, “Why did you get a liberal arts graduate degree?”<\/p>\n

There were a couple of responses to this, none of them particularly useful (nor indeed adequate). The best I could come up with was, “It taught me how to learn.”<\/p>\n

I used that phrase when I had to give a speech at my undergrad alma mater, Hampshire College<\/a>, in 2002. I don’t think the kids got what I was saying, but I tried. <\/p>\n

This morning, I was reading an interview in The Comics Journal<\/em> with Eddie Campbell<\/a>, one of our age’s finest cartoonists (excerpts here<\/a>). His 4-page Little Italy comic strip (collected in Three Piece Suit<\/a>) is my all-time favorite. Here’s a snippet from the interview:<\/p>\n

I think on the education front, the world focuses too much on the idea of education as a means to a job. Imagine learning all the great wisdom of the world so that you can get a job. What an absurdity. We should be learning all the great wisdom of the world in order to become wise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of which is to say, nothing at St. John’s explicitly prepared me to be the editor of a pharmaceutical contract services business-to-business magazine, but I wouldn’t trade those two years for anything (now, the four years at Hampshire, on the other hand. . .).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I attended the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD from 1993-1995. At the end of that period, I was awarded a Master of Arts, Liberal Arts degree (we nicknamed it the evil Spanish woman degree, or M.A.L.A.). During four different job interviews (between 1995 and 1997), the person on the other side … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Get Smart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4C7K-821","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9716,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-173-christopher-nelson","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":0},"title":"Episode 173 – Christopher Nelson","author":"Gil","date":"June 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #173: Christopher Nelson \u201cIf virtue can be taught, it's only by learning to ask the types of questions that make you a thoughtful person.\" My two-year term at St. John's College's Graduate Institute was the most important part of my life. During my recent trip back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/st-johns-college-md_416x416.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":490,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mystery-achievement","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":1},"title":"Mystery Achievement","author":"Gil","date":"February 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Jennifer Weiner explains how to submit a Talk of the Town piece to the New Yorker.Step eight: Paranoia. Decide that Talk of the Town assistant is twenty-two-year-old Brown graduate with size zero leather miniskirt and degree in semiotics who automatically shuns any book or short story with actual plot and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1543,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-want-a-new-drug","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":2},"title":"I want a new drug","author":"Gil","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoy writing the big Top 20 Pharma \/ Top 10 Biopharma report each June. Sure, it's not what I imagined I'd be doing when I was a brooding, pretentious idiot in college, but it turns out that there's plenty of fun to be had in researching and writing these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7120,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-highest-learning","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":3},"title":"Podcast: Highest Learning","author":"Gil","date":"June 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 3 episode 12 - Highest Learning Your humble(ish) host just made his annual Piraeus pilgrimage to St. John's College in Annapolis, MD, this time to participate in a four-day seminar about Moby Dick . . . and score a great interview! I managed to get legendary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=voyantpublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0967967570","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":633,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-very-model-of-modern-major-general","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":4},"title":"The very model of modern major general","author":"Gil","date":"August 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Good post by Megan \"Jane Galt\" McCardle, who's filling in at Instapundit this week. It's about how mind-numbingly boring high-paying jobs can be, and how severe the winnowing-out process can be.I have a pretty unromantic job, editing a pharmaceutical trade magazine. It's not what my teachers and professors had in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2029,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/sun-roth","url_meta":{"origin":821,"position":5},"title":"Sun Roth","author":"Gil","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Today's edition of the New York Sun's Arts+ section continues to defend its title as Official Newspaper of Gil Roth (and several other Roths, as seen in #s 1 and 2): Roth Time Redux, discussing the impact of Dieter Roth, a new exhibition on Philip Guston, with a shout-out to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}