English majors get a lot of flack. I’m regularly asked if, as a double Communications and English major, I’m going for my “Mrs” degree or if I’m participating in a social experiment about poverty. I often face a lot of remarks about my supposedly light workload, as if all I do in class is discuss literary themes and grammar trends and never have to spend six continuous hours reading about psychoanalytic criticism in addition to writing my own pieces of analysis on the New Historicism themes within an archaic text.
The truth is, I’m not sure why we get as much grief as we do. Yes, it probably seems to many that all we ever do is read and write. But it's a different kind of difficulty than rote memorization of chemistry symbols and plugging-and-chugging math equations. And being an English major doesn’t just mean you’re on the career path of being a writer (although, in my case, that is exactly what it means and I realize I'm facing impending doom in regards to success). Graduating from a well-renowned university with a Bachelor’s degree in English opens the door to countless possibilities, including law school and even medical school.
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s just over halfway through the quarter and I’m exhausted and sick of everyone and everything, but I’m pretty fed up with people hating on the meager amount of us who have chosen to pursue a career that may or may not end up as writing an advice column in a poorly-circulated literary journal. In the past year since I’ve declared my English major, however, I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of amazing professors with incredible stories and long lists of accomplishments, as well as fellow students who have beautiful stories in their hearts and souls that are yet to be told. My major means a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a lot of thinking, but it makes me happy. Were I to major in a science field or in business management, I wouldn’t be doing what I love, and at the end of the day, being happy is what matters.
But, regardless, of my happiness, people really seem to think that being an English major implies absolutely no studying or hard work. Here’s a newsflash: it’s college. It’s all hard work.
You’re so lucky you don’t have any studying to do.
So you don’t have any finals, right?
What do you even do with an English major?
What are you going to write your book about?
That’s so great you want to live a humble lifestyle.
A four-page essay takes, like, no time.
You have to read a poem for homework? That’s it?
You must have so much free time.
You must love to read.
So you’re going to marry rich, huh?
