Would a Creative Writing degree from Southern New Hampshire University be valuable?
There’s no simple answer to this question, unfortunately. I agree with the others that you definitely need to know what you want from the degree; in other words, what does “valuable” mean to you? If it’s fame and fortune, you might be lucky, and you might not, just like anyone without the degree.If it’s a deeper understanding of how good writing works, you can spend a lot of time working that out for yourself, or you can find someone better than you to learn from. That can come in the form of getting a degree or just finding someone (or someones) to work with independently, which will speed things up and cost you less money. You can find people who might fit this bill at a local school or writers group.If you want to teach—depending on what level—you you may need a degree, but look around and make sure an MFA is still considered enough to get you the gig. A lot of post-secondary schools are now requiring a PhD regardless, which means either you won’t get a teaching gig, or they’ll hire you as an adjunct. Adjuncts are slave labor—no exaggeration. (Read up on the plight of adjuncts as well; there have been plenty of articles in the last 5–6 years about how little they earn for the work they put in.) It could help you land a secondary-level teaching job, though. High schools may not require anything more than an English degree, though an MFA may help you stand out above the crowd. (If you can get a high school gig and then get them to pay for the MFA, that’s the best of both worlds.)The one other thing an MFA will give you is connections, both to the faculty and to your classmates, some of whom will probably publish something and gain at least some momentary recognition. Publishing is as much about who you know as what you know—maybe more. When people say that there’s nothing the degree can do for you, they may well have a point (outside of teaching)—but they’re forgetting the connections. They’re not a guarantee of publication, but they can link you up with interesting people whether you publish or not. And they become your writing community in a way that a local writers group won’t, just because you’ve shared that experience.
Why do most electrical and electronic engineers often forsake their primary calling (hardware) and end up as a thorough software programmer?
Quite simply because there are lots of things you can do through software that cannot be done physically by electronic components. Digital signal processing is a good example - finite impulse response filters are a great example of ones that can only be realized in software.Microprocessors opened huge areas of possibility for control strategies that would have been hopeless using hard-wired controllers. The promise of a universal controller that can constantly re-use its hardware under control of firmware is irresistible. I can design an equivalent hardware circuit in order to understand its designed function but I cannot justify manufacturing that circuit when its function can be realized with a reusable programmed controller techniques.I don’t see much of a tension between hardware and software design - they’re both methods of implementing electronically defined and controlled systems, and that’s what electrical engineers are supposed to design.And for the record, I have remained designing primarily hardware - much of which is made to function through software or firmware (cooked-in software). I constrain my software activity to the design of pseudocode (a generalized method of expressing what software is intended to to without requiring all the details of implementation) and assembly language - coding in the cooked-in language of the chips. I don��t feel any less or any more of an engineer for doing so.
How can I avoid taking general education classes in college?
In the United States, just about all colleges accredited by regional accreditors require that students take a certain proportion of courses to fulfill major requirements and also a proportion of courses to fulfill general education requirements. Gen ed courses are typically things like writing, English, math, science, and social science, maybe other humanities courses, and typically make up something like one-third of a typical bachelor’s program.Why are gen ed courses required?A college is about educating students not training them (only) for a specific skill.An influential leader in higher education from about 100 years ago, Cardinal Newman, explained that the purpose of the university was to educate the whole person. (See his book, The Idea of a University.)Employers want and need T-shaped people with T-shaped skills - Wikipedia. People with both depth (the major) and breadth (gen ed).That said, some prestigious, strong, and/or innovative colleges don’t have the typical gen ed requirement. Brown University comes to mind as one of those. Maybe Marlboro or Hampshire? You might want to research the more innovative liberal arts colleges. Few “regular” larger colleges and universities will let you opt out of gen ed.Edited to add: Also check out Goddard College in VT.