Do you want fries with your PhD?

The BA is not a way to find a man. It’s not a route to eternal poverty. And it’s not (necessarily) a soft option for students who can’t crack science or engineering. So argues the always provocative Professor Jonathan Jansen, who says that a BA is not useless degree.

Jansen quotes the pizza joke (“at least a pizza can feed a family of four”), but there’s another one, the one that always features on the T-shirts: “I’m a college graduate — do you want fries with that?”

The idea that a PhD is an impediment to gainful employment is a recurring joke in popular culture. There are so many stories of people with PhDs driving taxis or serving burgers (even, in some cases, working as prostitutes, as in the case of Belle du Jour, who turned out to be a research scientist). Being clever matters when it comes to the end of year Matric results and the amazing number of As some intimidating overachiever gets — actuarial science and a lucrative career for them — but being clever is not strictly cool. Certainly not cool enough to hang with models and Idols winners.

So it was strange to find myself at the Radisson Blu last night at the launch of a new Range Rover, perched on a screaming pink chair with a screen above my head reading ”Dr Sarah Britten”. On one side of me sat Matthew Booth; on the other, his wife Sonia shared a chair with Peta Eggierth-Symes, who deserves a long service award for her contribution to the Joburg socialite scene (she looks amazingly good for someone I read about in Style magazine when I was a kid, back in the 80s).

The bit that stood out was the Dr. I had no idea that the organisers were going to use my academic title in the promotional material and when I first spotted it, I broke out in hives at the thought of sotto voce accusations that I was milking it for all it was worth. I had to down two rather strong Cosmopolitans to overcome the shock.

There I was in the pink chair, my self-consciousness suitably anaesthetised, listening while the MC, Mark Bayly, introduced me as “Dr Sarah Britten” and reminded the audience that Barry Ronge once called me Hitler with tits. Along with a fashion designer, a hugely popular actress, and an associate editor of GQ, I’m up there as a representative of Joburg to the world — and it turns out that my academic credentials are an important selling point.

Oh, I know that everybody hates people who insist on reminding others of the letters they’re entitled to put behind their names (every second American seems to be so-and-so, PhD). So I’m wary of overdoing the Dr this and Dr that, and whenever the matter comes up — usually when I’m referred to as “Miss” or “Mrs” in official documentation — I say that I procrastinated for 7 years to get that title, so dammit I’m going to use it.

The juxtaposition of scholastic gravitas with the bling and the celebs and the free-flowing Moët was deliciously strange. The fact that I had a doctorate made me more memorable; it was a unique selling proposition as it were. So I’m glad, on reflection, that the PR people thought that the PhD was part of my sales pitch. It means, for one thing, that being clever can help sell cars. It means that the ability to probe society and culture beyond the surface gloss can actually (and, yes, ironically) be part of an innovative ad campaign for a brand that happens to be one of the most potent signifiers of power and prestige in South Africa today. It means that academic achievement — even academic achievement within a field that isn’t “useful” in the classical sense — still counts for something.

If having a PhD means asking “do you want a panoramic sunroof with your Range Rover?” then maybe — just maybe — we’re making progress. I’m just sorry Khanyi Mbau wasn’t there — I would have loved to have asked her what she meant when she said her conscience told her to get that car.