As a Senior English major who is soon to graduate, there are several comments about my major that I have been confronted with sense day one. As exciting as graduating is, the time of my life has come when I must look back and reflect on my college years while also looking forward to the professional world. Over the last four years, there have been several lasting motifs. Here are five things you should never say to an English major:

1. "I hated English in High School"

While I can appreciate that everyone has that specific class that they hate to think about- the class that makes you cringe when it comes up in nostalgic conversations with your high school friends, I do not need to know that you hated English. Usually the topic of college majors comes up when you first meet someone. Just a word of advice: It's never appropriate to down someone's major when you first meet them. The fact that you had a terrible experience with a high school teacher is really not first date material. In all honesty, it probably wasn't that you hated English itself, but that you hated the underpaid and overstressed person that taught you English. This becomes really a concern about our incompetent school system as opposed to a hatred for a core subject.

2. "Eww!"

Just writing that header made me mad. This response usually comes from the annoying girl that seems to have a lot of friends but has decided to grace you with conversation at the Honors Society formal. Her insecurities are automatically fueled when you tell her that you have dedicated four years of your life to the English department and somehow still have time for a personality, so she attacks. Hold steadfast my fellow bookies, it's her not you.

3. "So you're going to be a teacher?"

I get this reaction more than any of the others combined. Now, don't get me wrong, I love teachers. I think they're the backbone of America, but being an English major does not translate Education major. There is a difference. In most universities, if your plan is to teach, you major in Education and specialize in a specific subject such as Math, History, and yes, English. Usually, this is a completely different department and group of students than the English majors. We're the crazy kids that actually want to write books, publish books, become technical writers, or speech writers, or promotional writers or screenplay writes or ... While I appreciate those who do, my desire is not to teach the young and annoying minds of America.

4. "You'll never make money."

This response usually comes from those that assume you're going to teach that won't shut up long enough for you to correct them. The ignorance grows deeper. If this is your response to English majors, do I have news for you. Established authors make bank! Where do you think the foundation for most of Hollywood's output comes from? In addition to well know authors, there are also large paying jobs for us common folk. Technical writers are in low supply yet are highly demanded. While not as glamorous as writing the next great American novel, these writers bring in the dough! Many companies that are not even in the literary field hire English majors because of our ability to think critically and argue useful points as well as our ability to avoid common grammatical errors. They hire us to make promotional materials or edit important documents. We are hired to make them look good with our snazzy word usage. English majors also go on to higher education such as law school. We've been indoctrinated with the ability to argue useful and source supported points. The point is, there's a lot of money to be made for us book worms.

5. "You all just sit around and read all day."

Wow. I don't know of any college major that facilitates an atmosphere of laziness but some seem to think it can be found in the English department. Like all majors, general education classes are required which stretch students beyond their English comfort zones, but aside from those classes, English classes themselves are quite challenging. In few other majors are you required to use the abstract thinking skills that go along with ALL English classes. Yes, I have read a plethora of books in my life time, specifically these last four years, but I have also been required to understand different culture, different languages, and different world criticism that travel way past the latest Young Adult novel. After understanding these concepts, I'm then required to write a boat-load of pages about it for my professors to "grade" while on Thanksgiving break.

I get it. Not everyone loves English the way I do. But please, before you make yourself look stupid, consider that everyone is passionate about their major- or at least should be, and no one wants to hear that you think their life pursuits are pointless. To all my fellow English majors, what we do and what we will do is important. We are the world changers. Through the written word, countries are built and countries are crumbled. Through the written word, freedom is won. Through the written word, dreams are made reality and fear is defeated. Write on my book worms! Write on!