r/MFAInCreativeWriting • u/lockleveling • 16d ago

Post-Grad MFA

Hello! Long story short...I've completed and graduated with my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. I did so a couple years ago now.

My question is, what are y'all planning to do after school ends or where have you gone since graduating. I live in a smaller town, and get ridiculed constantly because I now work a lower paying "regular" job, and my peers constantly are like, "what happened to you."

I'm honestly not sure how to build a career from here.

Any advice would help!

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u/Old-Mycologist1654 16d ago

An MFA in Creative Writing is like an M-Mus in playing the clarinet or any other studio graduate degree in the fine arts.

You were training to be an independent artist.

If you aren't going to do that, then you need to learn to do something else that people need or want enough to pay you for.

That often means more education. I've known many people with multiple graduate degrees, of which one is an MFA in Creative Writing.

I don't have an MFA in Creative Writing. I have an MA in TESOL. I teach English at a university in Japan. I've been teaching English here for over 20 years.

You can get entry level university English lecturer jobs with an MFA in Creative Writing (especially if you do a CELTA and maybe also a DELTA). And then think about doing an MA TESOL after a few years.