Dropping out of English Lit MA

I'm one semester into an English Lit masters and hating it. I got a first at undergrad (also in english) and couldn't wait to start my masters. I took a year out to earn money, did a bit of travelling, felt a little unsure about coming back to do the masters come september but put it down to cold feet. Now it's January, I'm depressed, anxious and more miserable than I've ever been. All my friends are elsewhere working, earning and having a great time whilst I'm back in the place we did our undergrad, with only 2 friends and hating my course. If I drop out now, I'll lose £2k but get £4k back. If I carry on, I'll need to take out the postgrad loan and rack up more debt. I don't want to pursue academia (which after undergrad I thought I did), and the thought of another 8 months writing ******** I don't care about is horrific. How useful is a masters in English really going to be in terms of getting a job?! I have one year's work experience in Marketing and am nearly 25.. I feel like I should have a proper job by now!! I always worked so hard at school and loved learning, but now my head is just not in it and I am so miserable. Is it worth sucking it up to have another qualification?! I just don't know what to do.

Reply 1

The Empire Odyssey

21

Original post by jugsey

I'm one semester into an English Lit masters and hating it. I got a first at undergrad (also in english) and couldn't wait to start my masters. I took a year out to earn money, did a bit of travelling, felt a little unsure about coming back to do the masters come september but put it down to cold feet. Now it's January, I'm depressed, anxious and more miserable than I've ever been. All my friends are elsewhere working, earning and having a great time whilst I'm back in the place we did our undergrad, with only 2 friends and hating my course. If I drop out now, I'll lose £2k but get £4k back. If I carry on, I'll need to take out the postgrad loan and rack up more debt. I don't want to pursue academia (which after undergrad I thought I did), and the thought of another 8 months writing ******** I don't care about is horrific. How useful is a masters in English really going to be in terms of getting a job?! I have one year's work experience in Marketing and am nearly 25.. I feel like I should have a proper job by now!! I always worked so hard at school and loved learning, but now my head is just not in it and I am so miserable. Is it worth sucking it up to have another qualification?! I just don't know what to do.

Ma would be OK in something like academia or maybe even in publishing (although the latter want more experience). But other than that I don't think its that useful to you especially if you don't wish to pursue academia further. And if you will get 4k back, then that's better then feeling like you've gone into debt for no reason at all.

Reply 2

QHF

11

Original post by jugsey

I'm one semester into an English Lit masters and hating it. I got a first at undergrad (also in english) and couldn't wait to start my masters. I took a year out to earn money, did a bit of travelling, felt a little unsure about coming back to do the masters come september but put it down to cold feet. Now it's January, I'm depressed, anxious and more miserable than I've ever been.

All my friends are elsewhere working, earning and having a great time whilst I'm back in the place we did our undergrad, with only 2 friends and hating my course. If I drop out now, I'll lose £2k but get £4k back. If I carry on, I'll need to take out the postgrad loan and rack up more debt. I don't want to pursue academia (which after undergrad I thought I did), and the thought of another 8 months writing ******** I don't care about is horrific.

How useful is a masters in English really going to be in terms of getting a job?! I have one year's work experience in Marketing and am nearly 25.. I feel like I should have a proper job by now!! I always worked so hard at school and loved learning, but now my head is just not in it and I am so miserable. Is it worth sucking it up to have another qualification?! I just don't know what to do.

By and large, a master's degree in a humanities subject isn't a big career asset outside academia. This can be different in, for example, some bits of the heritage sector, and some jobs which have a research component—the specific subject isn't terribly important, but the ability to take a dissertation-sized research task away, self-manage, and come back with a substantial, high-quality answer can be valuable. But if you don't want to work in that kind of role that's not so relevant.

Bear in mind that January, because of the weather and the post-Christmas come-down, is the peak time for people wanting to drop out of university courses; without trivialising the genuine reasons motivating you to stop, that might be contributing. I'd say, too, that if you enjoyed and excelled during your BA then there might be some specific local issues with the MA course and the departmental approach/ethos at your institution. It might (or might not) be worth talking your problems through in a frank manner with your adviser/point-of-contact person, depending on how helpful they are and on your relationship with them. (I'd also caution against buying the rhetoric of 'growing up and getting a "proper" job': having food and shelter is good, but beyond that there's more to life than being a suit, and many in our generation are just not going to be able to imitate the respectability and prosperity our parents enjoyed. The problem with the MA is of course that you're paying for it and not the other way around: that's a food-and-shelter problem.)

In general to me it sounds like you have a reasonably good case for stopping, though it must be your decision at the end of the day.

If it's any consolation, you have gained something: the knowledge that you don't want to try to pursue an academic career. Some people come to that knowledge much later (like, after-having-done-a-PhD later), and some people want to pursue an academic career but find that they can't because, when they reach the end of their doctorates, they can't get an academic job. Compared to that level of professional frustration, dropping out of a master's isn't so awful. You've gotten that knowledge out of the process, and probably for a lower cost in money and time than if you'd not tried a MA while young, and then given up a high-paying job later in life to do what you thought was your passion.

Dropping out of English Lit MA

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