Graduating in the Fall with a BA in Philosophy. I started out as a BFA in Visual Arts, moving on to Japanese and then Anthropology. I didn't agree with the Fine Arts faculty at our University on a number of things, as more than a few professors were primarily interested in postmodern Art and the art of making as much nonsense up as possible when describing a work. So in order to justify something as a work of Art and not merely a piece of scrap metal hanging about like some grotesque chandelier/construction hazard that required a hard hat to be around. There was no real notion of simply doing Art for its own sake, there had to be justification for every line, colour and image, and I could not continue in such a place.
I moved on to Japanese, and enjoyed for a few years getting to study a language, culture and history I was initially unfamiliar with but interested in, and even at one point I was able to go to Kyoto, Japan for some classes. When I realized that the professor at my University (and not the one in Kyoto) was doing little more than regurgitating the textbook however (rather than facilitating an environment where we were actually using the language primarily), I felt my time and money could be better spent elsewhere and went searching for another discipline.
I took a few Anthropology classes and initially enjoyed some of what it had to offer in questioning aspects of culture and social interaction amongst humanity (something I had enjoyed while studying Japanese history), but overall I was disappointed with the readings, in that most of it seemed like padding in the attempt to make essays and theses more intellectual in appearance rather than in content.
Tired and frustrated, I dropped several Anthropology courses and in their stead I took up a few Philosophy ones, alongside a course in Classics. The change in my attitude and mood was astounding: that was the first time in my entire academic career where when writing an essay, I had too much to say rather than not enough. I ended up dropping a 26 page paper on my Aesthetics professor on the beginnings of a theory of Art that had little to do with defining Art, but showing the interactions between language, thought and feeling (e.g. the aesthetic experience) that primarily led to concluding something to be Art. Since then I've gone on to study a number of different thinkers and applications of Philosophy, and even continue to study outside of the classroom.
I don't expect the degree itself to do much, but the experiences I've had and the knowledge I've sampled have and will likely continue to play a big role in shaping my writing, thoughts, Art, life, etc. For the most part I want to continue writing, whether it be through short stories, novels, journals and essays, or stories paired with drawings in comic form, or even in some technical application, writing is what I like to do (if it was not evident by this long post), and writing is what I will continue to do, so long as I am able.
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