The late Mitch Hedberg told a joke that goes something like this:
I bought a box of Ritz crackers and on the back of the box they have all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the crackers. Put some peanut butter on there. Try it with cheese. But I like crackers man, that’s why I bought them. It’s like, they have no faith in the product itself.
I offer this joke as prelude to an observation. At a party the other night with many people who did not know me, I was asked repeatedly what I’m up to. When I tell them that I’m currently studying Yiddish and poetry, the reaction was universally the same—
How interesting…(insert confused pause while they wait for me to say—haha, just kidding, I’m an investment banker!)…and what will you do with that?
My instinct is to say, ‘Well, I’ll probably speak Yiddish better and know more about poetry, that’s probably what I’ll do with that,” but somehow I’m guessing this wouldn’t satisfy the question. Because, as we should know, the point of learning something is not to learn it—it’s to prepare you for a tangentially related career. But I like crackers man, that’s why I bought them.
And yet, an irony emerges. One of my inquisitors told me his own son (and his eyes moisten with pride), is off to study at Wharton Business School. Now, dear readers, you’ll forgive me here because one of my own loyal readers as a misguided youth almost went to Wharton and perhaps some of you know people who went to Wharton or even (God forbid it!) went there yourself, so you’ll forgive me when I say that my reaction on hearing this was to start giggling uncontrollably and what a worthless endeavor this truly was.
Luckily, the proud father was too busy talking about how amazing the curriculum was and how he’s going to major in entrepreneurism (!). But honestly my thought was, business school? (pregnant pause)…what the hell will he do with that?
Because is anything vaguer than the idea of studying business? What the hell is business? What business? The Yiddish translator, the TV writer, the astronaut, and the accountant are all involved with a business, so what magical curriculum will prepare a young mind to tackle all these disparate fields? You might as well major in ‘Having a Job,’ since majoring in business reveals your curiosity toward the world does not extend beyond this goal. You could take such amazing classes as, “Stuff you do at different jobs,” and “How to enroll in direct deposit,” and “Is giving up our company eye insurance in favor of pet insurance a good deal?” (from experience, no).
What you learn in business school, it might as well be Yiddish for what good it will do you in “business.” Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but I do know a little bit about what I’m talking about—I was a business minor after all. And in answer to your question, I haven’t done shit with it.
ADDENDUM: Of course, since my University-subsidized writerly life is coming to an end soon, I basically have 9-12 months to figure out what I really am going to do with…uh…that. MBA maybe?
Tags: will work for food
Bottom line, the MBA synergizes its entire customer base. Can you say as much for the *other* three-letters-beginning-with-M degree?!
And, since we weren’t speaking of it at all, you might like this:
http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html