Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Sorry about writing yet another post that’s essentially navel gazing with a patina of general relevance, but I just (OK, maybe I didn’t just realize this) realized that many of my favorite writers about culture, literature and the intellectual world are either lapsed Phds or “failed” academics. Stephen Metcalf, for example, was enrolled in two different English PhD programs. Jim Holt, described himself as a failed mathematician, DFW briefly attended Harvard as a philosophy graduate student. I think many of the contributors to Lingua Franca had been enrolled in a PhD program at one time or another.

So, so since I know that (as of now), I want to be someone like Jim Holt or Benjamin Schwarz, should I muck around in a philosophy or literature PhD program for a few years after I graduate from college? I mean, that seems to be the career advancement path that everyone else is following!