some people never majored in money written
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When the University of East Anglia offered the first British MA in creative writing almost 35 years ago, it caused academic scandal. According to Malcolm Bradbury, the writer who helped set it up, "some thought writing couldn't be taught. Some thought, if it could be, it shouldn't be."
Despite this opposition there are now hundreds of creative writing courses, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. So are they worth the money?
A search on the Ucas website shows seventy eight institutions offer creative writing as an undergraduate subject, and course options get even wider at post-graduate level, with even Oxbridge getting in on the act. But the Cambridge MA, will set you back £10,000; double that figure if you are an overseas student.
Many suspect that degree courses cash in on the hopes and dreams of aspiring writers, or that such an apparently woolly subject fails to prepare students for the world of employment. In practice, course prospectuses carefully avoid setting up false expectations, and emphasise the transferable skills you acquire as a student of writing.
Julia Bell, novelist and tutor in creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London, argues that graduates of its programme "should have the critical and rhetorical skills to get a job in the creative industries, in education, editing, copywriting and so on".