Disclaimer: I only have my own individual experience from one MFA program to go on, so some of these insights may not be universal… but I would be quite surprised if they weren’t.  This post is also not intended to scare away new or potential students from having a positive outlook, I for the most part had a reasonable MFA experience, and I’m not even saying all these things written below will happen, but they can. Forewarned is forearmed.

Every field has politics to navigate, and the MFA in Writing is no different. I myself walked into my program as a starry-eyed naïve optimist who had a wonderful time in undergrad, and assumed the MFA would be just as supportive and idealistic. My thinking was in fact, a misconception, and I quickly had a rude awakening to the political issues that arose when you are surrounded by writers in a high-residency graduate program, so here is what I wished I had known… when MFA’s go bad.

The Workshop Format Can Enable Your Writing to be Unfairly Scrutinized

If you’re like me, and have prior experience work-shopping you’re writing in undergrad, understand the MFA is a whole new environment. No longer are you taking your creative writing workshop classes for fun, but taking them at a higher level in order to become more specialized and hone your craft.  

The ideal situation? Your cohort is without fail always professional, constructive, and supportive of each others work, they understand how to provide helpful feedback, and everyone goes home happy… it doesn’t often work like that.

We know sharing your work in a workshop format is supposed to be used as a positive learning tool, but I disagree with the assumption that always happens. Workshops have the capacity to mold the foundation for a toxic environment because they mean one thing: exposure. Your work will be held to a higher standard by the professors and your peers. Essentially, your writing is evaluated live for the whole cohort to see, both the good, and the bad.

The bright exposure can leave you vulnerable to major criticism (and I don’t mean the constructive kind.) Sometimes you are put up with another writer in the same class period, which is rather unfortunate, because it becomes glaringly obvious who’s work won the day with the cohort and the professor. After class, people can talk, decompress, and yes, judge harshly. I would be lying if I told you I never had a tense and unhelpful workshop. This is where unhealthy competition gets its wings, and the classroom becomes a battlefield.

The Inherent Competitiveness of the MFA

Connecting to what I wrote above, you might experience competitiveness within your program. Writers like anyone can either be wonderfully welcoming and supportive, or egos can rear their ugly heads.

The ideal? Your cohort is not only supportive of your writing, but they also celebrate your successes and competitiveness is never an issue because community is more important. Again, I doubt this is a realistic monolith.

The arts in general is a competitive industry, and there is constant jostling for position. (Ask my Mother, a classical musician, she has stories.) As graduate degrees go, the MFA is not the most practical path nor the most stable. There is never any guarantee of a job, or success. Everyone in their MFA has risked something to be there and all have something to lose. If you went to a higher ranked program, the people in it are there because they should be very good at what they do. Even if they don’t say it out load, they want to prove themselves and be the best. So, if you combine the exposed workshop format with writers who are ultra competitive, it is a recipe for a tough road ahead. Socially in this case, insecurities can run rampant, fur may fly, and your peers might even rank each other on the basis of popularity or quality of writing.

I say this because quite frankly everyone knows who the “top” writers are after awhile. High quality work in an unhealthy space is a threat, and is easily assessed because it becomes quite obvious whose writing is striking a tone in workshop every week, (and whose is not.) Writing is a competitive sport at the best of times, and the MFA can be a hunting ground. I personally walked in having no idea of these dynamics. At the first party I was invited to, people were already sizing me up asking not just what I wrote, but how many MFA programs I got into, and if I received a funding package. I answered honestly, not realizing it was all meant to gauge what they were up against. Elitism is part of the game, so acceptances and money speak a thousand words.

The Anxiety of Finding a Job in the Humanities

If the MFA wasn’t already competitive enough, being under the umbrella of the Humanities field inflates the issue. Of course, I wish we could all set aside our survivalists instincts and enjoy art for arts sake, but that isn’t facing facts. As much as I wish we all could support one another and always be the best version of ourselves in a healthy writing community, the fact is everyone is out for the same dream: to get published and have an unrealistic career as a writer. Having many more MFA graduates flooding the pipeline than jobs available for tenure track positions for example, creates desperation and pressure for success, even if no one talks about it. Desperation means there is an unreasonable amount of pressure to be better, do better, publish more, be more. I do not agree with this philosophy, but it is a reality we all have to face.

What Can You Do About Unhealthy Competitiveness?

I am probably the worst person to provide insight into this question because my answer is simple: keep doing what you’re doing and don’t change a thing. If your presence in your MFA program is ruffling some feathers and creating unreasonable personal criticism, then you may be doing something right. As uncomfortable as it is, your MFA is the time to grow into yourself as a writer and that shouldn’t include changing who you are and what/ how you write for external validation. Ignore the haters, find some people in your corner, and focus on yourself, haters are everywhere anyway!