This has been bothering me for weeks now:
A couple months ago, I got a great haircut, but the guy who did it was about to move to Austin. He was going to try to get into a graduate program at UT, to get a master’s or Ph.D in American cultural studies or something.
Anyway, he seemed excited but a little nervous about it. I should note that I totally support the moving part of his plan—if I remember rightly, he’d grown up in Wisconsin and pretty much lived here all his life. I do think people should generally move away from where they grew up, even if they eventually come back.
But he said something like how he had to go to school so he could start doing something “real” or get a real job, or how he couldn’t do this—cut my hair—for the rest of his life. And hey, maybe he really hated cutting hair. But if he was just moving and going to grad school because he wanted a “career” or financial security, I would put this out there:
In a rotten economy, or really in any economy, how many people with Ph.D’s in American cultural studies do you think we actually need? How much of what you learn with that degree will really render you indispensable?
On the other hand, will we ever stop needing barbers? And couldn’t you be, like, a barber who read and discussed interesting books?