August 20, 2002 | 11:35 AM

School starts soon and I am so excited I could pee myself.

Ok�not really, but you get the point.

I�m taking �History of Film� and �America During The Depression and World War II.� this Fall.

This morning I browsed through the catalogue to see what classes are offered in the Spring. There is a class called �The Politics of Fascism�. I was so excited I gasped with joy and said aloud (although I didn�t mean to)

�Yay fascism!!!!!�

And a well known professor who was at that moment passing by my office (and who incidentally happens to be a notorious womanizer�I wish I could print his name but I would get into trouble most likely) gave me a very dirty look.

I am so excited about the fascism class.

So as of yet I have not taken (nor do I have any immediate plans to take) a single �required� course for my degree. I sort of dread the whole �getting a degree� part.

Which brings me to my point.

I don�t know if I want to ever get my degree. It just seems like a waste of time. I mean, what is the point of it? I have a kick ass job that I like and which pays me well. Why should I get a degree in something? Nobody I know who has a degree uses it. I just want to take classes for the rest of my life in subjects that interest me. I know I�m making a huge generalization here but I honestly think having a degree in a subject is such a big fat waste of time�unless you are a doctor or a lawyer or something that requires you to have very specialized knowledge. But I mean, a degree in creative writing or art history? I�m not saying people shouldn�t take those classes. I�m not saying that people shouldn�t devote their entire lives to subjects like that. That�s what I�d like to do. But I don�t understand why having a degree�a piece of paper that says �I am an expert in writing fiction� or �I know a lot about art history� means anything. What is the point of it? It�s almost embarrassing that such things exist.

What I mean is, why is someone who has a BFA from Oberlin in Medieval Art and Architecture more qualified to be a curator than someone who spent ten years reading books about art on their own and backpacking around Europe visiting the great cathedrals? I think it�s a shame that so many �creative� jobs are filled with mediocre people simply because those people have a degree in something.

Why can�t people just learn what they want to learn? Why all this formalized granting of �Ok�now you are worthy because you spent $100,000 and read what we told you to read� The art and publishing and film industry are clogged with college grads who took the safe well traveled route and learned the same shit as everyone else did. John Huston didn�t go to film school. Emily Dickenson didn�t get a degree in how to write poetry. Dorothy Parker didn�t even finish high school for christsakes.

Please please don�t misunderstand me. I am NOT making a blanket statement about all college students nor am I sneering at people who have degrees in a creative field. Most of my friends fit into that category and I myself was an Acting major for chistsakes. I just think it�s a shame that you almost kind of have to or are expected to get that degree to go anywhere in this day and age. And I think it�s made the entertainment industry and the art world so much less interesting.

Anybody can get a 3.5 GPA in high school, apply to a writing program at a liberal arts college, spend four years there and come out with a piece of paper that says �Now you�re a writer�, and that�s meaningless and sad.

Education is a wonderful phenomenal thing and I feel blessed to be able to have the opportunities I have to study and learn. But the machine of Higher Education, the rank and file approach to learning about the creative arts, has dumbed down art and literature, made it safe and mediocre and boring and elitist and polite. There has not been a single great art or literary movement in the past twenty years. And I think that has a direct correlation to the rise of college graduates in those fields and the unwillingness of industry people to hire creative talent without a degree in a corresponding subject.

Wouldn�t it be so much better if instead of spending four years in the nice gated community of Vassar or Harvard, being taught how to think and what to read, a prospective novelist lived a bizarre interesting life and learned about him/herself and actually came up with something to write about?

Keep in mind I�m criticizing myself just as much as I�m critiquing that pretend college student.

I guess my real point that I�ve made in a vague roundabout way is that in the art/film/literature worlds, adventure and risk have dissipated. We have sold ourselves a bill of goods that there is a correct tried and true method of attaining the highest level of originality and self expression. That all you have to do is fork over some money and spend a few years in a dorm.