Tortoiseshell Puzzles

 Each year, one of the highlights of my puzzling activities is the MIT Mystery Hunt. I have been hunting since 2003, and this year I hunted with my fourth team, having made the switch from Just for the Halibut to Immoral, Illegal, & Fattening. I intend to write a bit about my Mystery Hunt experiences in the future, but not just yet. For now, I wish to share one of the warm-up puzzles I wrote for this year's Hunt. Since 2007, I have often (but not always) chosen to write a warm-up extravaganza to give my teammates more practice at solving puzzles. Also, it's fun. I was particularly pleased with the extravaganza I wrote this year, and I will be sharing the whole thing in a few weeks after I make some minor tweaks to a couple puzzles, but for now you get a sneak peek at one of the puzzles. This is a variety cryptic called "What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?" and like any good Mystery Hunt-style puzzle, it leads to a single word or phrase as an answer. Frequently Mystery Hunt puzzles lack any sort of instructions, but I think you'll find this one pretty accessible. The picture of a chair at the bottom of the puzzle page is simply a logo used to signifiy the "round" that this puzzle came from, and is only relevant if you are solving the whole extravaganza. I hope to be back in later weeks to share the rest of the extravaganza with you, as well as more brand-new puzzles. Enjoy!

ETA (2013-02-28): There is an additional "thematic" answer that I hadn't originally considered, which may affect the answer extraction. I intend to post a corrected version soon, but for now, ignore any "thematic" answers involving unchecked letters. Thanks to solver Alan for catching the error.

ETA (2013-03-02): I have uploaded a corrected version of the puzzle and solution, which eliminates the extraneous "thematic" answer found above. Again, thanks to solver Alan for bringing the error to my attention.

I apologize in advance for the last Outward entry, which may be obscure for most folks. But he was a major figure in classical music, prolific throughout his life (he composed over a dozen works after the age of 100), and his name made such a great seed that I couldn't pass it up.

This spiral is somewhat lopsided; usually the number of entries in each direction are within one or two of each other, but this time there are 13 entries going inward and 17 going outward. I don't know how that will affect the solving experience.

With this puzzle, I come to realize that I only have harder puzzles lined up in my queue after this. Off to write some easy ones!