There are various stereotypes about college students, most of which revolve around the concept of your major. Unfortunately, we often let stereotypes precede our own judgments, and we take what information is immediately available to us rather than forming our own opinions after considerable reflection. If I got a dollar for every time my friends have made a joke about my major I could pay my tuition. One stereotype on campus is the sensitive, overly critical and rigid English major. Here are six telltale signs you are one of them.
You are basically a zombie with a pencil.
That student you see in the corner of the library with papers covering the table, a pencil in their hand (possibly a highlighter in the other) and a look on their face like they have risen from the dead? Odds are it is an English major. We have to read, analyze, write, revise and rewrite for each English class. Now multiply that by three to equate each English class we take in a semester.
You receive confused looks from others when you name drop an author/literary terminology.
Using "big" words around my friends never fails to entertain me. Some of my friends ask what the word that I used means, others may roll their eyes and the rest just continue the conversation. I could stop using complex words for the sake of casual conversations, but that would just be anomalistic.
You wear your suffering as a badge.
English majors are notorious for complaining about the amount of work we have to complete, while almost bragging about it. Our weeknights are crammed with essays, explications and reading whatever book is assigned to us. We will be stressed out, and we make that clear to everyone.
You proofread every text and social media post you write.
We have to keep our typos to a low minimum. Personally, I always triple check spelling, grammar and proper use of punctuation. I feel better about my social media post when I look at the caption and see a perfectly structured sentence. I am also the type of person that texts using proper punctuation and spells every word out.
You cringe when you read a non-English major's paper,
I have a lot of my peers ask me to proofread their papers. I am happy to help, that is until I actually read it. I can't blame them for this, but using the wrong word (i.e. the use of "your" and "you're" or "their," "they're" and "there") or tense of a word makes you want to curl up into a ball.
You could spend all day in a library.
There are just so many books I haven't read. If I don't read the synopsis of every book, I might miss an amazing book. Sometimes you want to spend the entire day finding books, but other times you can't leave because you haven't found a good book, or you have too many.
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