A handful of months after graduating with my MFA in Writing, I was back home in California catching up with a friend over lunch. Sitting across from me, he leaned in, asking me the one question I had been hearing verbatim since clasping my hands around my diploma. “So, what are you going to do with your degree? Would you say it helped get you get a job?

I laughed into my coffee, reflecting on the last two years. If I had a dollar for every time a friend or acquaintance inquired about this bizarre degree I decided to pursue, I would have paid off my loans by now.

“Not… exactly no. The MFA doesn’t work for you, you work for the MFA. Its arts degree.”

My friend nodded, putting down his fork, still a little confused.

“Then, why did you do it?”

Now that was something I could answer.

One of the reasons I began this blog was from observing a lack of useful information on MFA degrees in Writing on the internet. Apart from a few informative articles on: “is the MFA worth it?” the best bet I had was the regrettably contentious Grad Café website. I am not here to tell you if you should apply for an MFA or not. I indeed do not have all the answers, but I understand the system with firsthand insight and advice to give.

When applying in 2020, I mostly noticed stressed out young people on discussion boards with busy pens and big dreams buried in applications without an understanding of what they were getting into. Everyone seemed to want to be a “published author,” and assumed they were the next one hit wonder. I personally wanted an MFA because I loved to write and wanted to build my skillset. I wasn’t applying for the big bucks or job prospects, but I knew it was a good place to begin.

The truth is, an MFA is not going to set you up with all the answers, nor will anyone walk out with a New York Times book deal. An MFA is more respected than a bachelor’s degree and shows your commitment to your craft. It is a beginning, a direction. In graduate school, you are given the tools, but it is up to you to decide how to use them. I personally expanded my writing ability in the areas of craft, research, style, structure, and much more. I broke out of my nonfiction genre and took classes in composition, literature, and fiction. Grant writing and historical research also deemed useful. I sought out every professional opportunity that graduate school could offer and ran with it.

(More on that in a later post.)

Furthermore, you are ideally given a community to workshop you’re writing with and maybe a look into the publishing world. In my program I met some amazing people who I still stay in contact with. There were some students who walked in the place with huge egos and a dearth of topics to write about, (except contemplating their navels.) Some had no idea what else to do with their lives and applied on a whim. Others were well into their writing careers and wanted to dedicate more time to their craft. Whatever the reason, there are no guarantees for anyone graduating with an MFA, but if you do more than floating through the program with your eyes closed, you will get something out of your investment. I myself am headed into the ivory towers of academia once again to pursue a PhD in Creative Writing.

(Stay tuned for that insanity.)

Closing advice to potential MFAers in the making: go to graduate school because you love it, (assuming you aren’t going to make yourself go bankrupt.) But also understand there is no one right answer or formula to being successful. You have to do the heavy lifting yourself in your writing, and then it is my belief that something will work out.

Until next time,

Lena N. Gemmer

P.S: The best non-internet related resource I recommend is the book: “The Insiders Guide to Graduate Degrees in Creative Writing,” by Seth Abramson. Link below.