<p>I wouldn’t get a BFA in writing, but an MFA? True, nobody can teach you to be a good writer (nobody can teach you to be a good anything), but the support and more importantly professional contacts of the writers that teach at these programs can go a long way in helping you to find an agent, a publisher, no? If you manage to get a mentor like Saul Bellow, who speaks for you, you are somebody in other people’s eyes. I think when people talk about the tenacity, preparation, and solitary daily grind that goes into good writing, they forget the networking and in-on-the-sceneness that goes into successfully published writing. Like most professional masters, MFAs are more about exposure to the field and its insider knowledge than it is about education.</p>
<p>That said, for an aspiring writer (actor, critic, musician, academic), I think the most important aspect of undergraduate education is undergraduate prestige. If you have no talent for writing, you are not going to get published regardless of whether or not your Yale roommate edits The New Yorker. But, if you do have a talent, but you come from Schmuckville State, it will be very hard to get into the writing scene, grasp onto the people with power. In fields where so many executive decisions are made according to soft criteria, people will not take you seriously unless you have a piece of paper that says you’re a genius.</p>
<p>That said, I agree that an English major can be detrimental. A good writer is first and foremost a good reader, but majoring in critical analysis is not necessary for that. You need to know the canon in which you operate inside out, but that just means you have to read.</p>
<p>As for BFAs, I have no experience, but at my college, the people who take writing workshops for credit are largely graphomaniacs of some sort. At this age, when your parents pay for your life and you don’t have many alternatives to taking useless classes, it’s very hard to cull the serious people from the kids that feel compelled to use tired cliches to express their unimpressive feelings.</p>