HIGHER EDUCATION, NOW AND THEN:

About three years into my own English major, I was looking at want ads, and noted the dearth of positions for people who could, given a week, come up with 800 words on the metaphorical implications of the light on Daisy Buchanan’s dock. Likewise very little for poets. For some reason we expected there would be a POETS WANTED section in the want ads, broken down by specialty (Sonneteer, Patriotic Doggerel with Sturdy Manly Meter Maker, Depressed Blank Verse Fabricator, Unpunctuated Mewling Beatnik, etc.) Instead I found ads for the Dayton’s parking ramp booth (“Imperviousness to carbon monoxide a plus”) and a job waiting tables, which I was already doing.

I imagine it was different in 1873. “So, what are your qualifications?”

“I have a degree from the University of Minnesota.”

“Ah, so you’re the one I’ve heard about!”

It’s not that way today.