Keret posted:

Hey writing goons,

I've gotten back into writing in a big way this year, and as of late I've started thinking seriously about it as a vocation, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to proceed. The threads in this subforum have been extremely helpful for writing inspiration and general craft-related stuff, but I'm trying to decide what to do regarding education: if it's worth it; is it necessary; etc.

I am a voracious reader, luckily, and when I was younger I wrote a decent amount as well, but aside from AP English classes in high school, I have effectively no formal education in writing or the like -- it has all been, I suppose, osmosis from books and so on. I also dropped out of university after one year, so I have no degree to speak of and I'm wondering how much that is going to hurt me going forward. From speaking with a few people about it, it doesn't seem like education is a barrier to entry for getting things published from a technical standpoint, but I am concerned that it could be for other related jobs such as editing -- something I might want or need to look into given that writing, especially in the beginning, is not easy to make a living off of by itself. As for genre, my interests have been an even split between Fiction, both short and longer format, and more recently Creative Nonfiction -- especially long-form essays in the vein of Annie Dillard or Ta-Nehisi Coates, and articles/columns in periodicals and magazines (N+1 and the Atlantic being good examples) which I have been reading quite a lot of. As such, my writing generally falls into one of those two categories, and I could absolutely see myself writing essays or columns for periodicals in the future, along with trying to publish some fiction in whatever way works for that. But, as I've seen from discussions here, it might not be very likely that I could make a living off of that; thus the potential need for other jobs in publishing, magazines, whatever.

So, that leads me to considering if it is a good idea to try to go back to school or not. I am 27 now, and have no safety net or real savings to speak of (but thankfully almost no debt). Since I dropped out the first time, I've always considered getting a degree to be, frankly, out of my reach financially, and so haven't really looked into it. But, writing actually appears to be something I am truly passionate about and I have no desire to remain working in the field I am in (lighting for live production), so I wanted to ask: do you guys think it's worth the expense and time to get a degree? I am still trying to figure out what related jobs might require one, but even that aside, I can't shake the feeling that I am missing some very large amount of information that would be useful to me as a writer by not undergoing a university education; the sort of information that I don't know I don't know. Regardless of what route I go, I intend to continue to read and write as often as I can, and hope to start posting in the relevant threads here to improve my writing chops, but I'm still in the dark and I could use a bit of guidance.

Sorry for the rambling expatiation, and thanks!