If you’re someone majoring in something that most people deem as a “creative” major, such as english or art, it’s inevitable to constantly receive backlash and feel as if people are always looking down on you. As someone who is majoring in English, I’ve experienced my fair share of snide remarks from people who look towards my major as a joke, and these are the top nine assumptions people make about “creative” majors that aren’t true at all:
1. We aren’t smart enough for any other major.
I’m not one to gloat and talk about all of my accomplishments, but being I actually am really intelligent, this is the one misconception that pisses me off the most. I received straight A’s all throughout high school and was on the honor roll every single quarter from sixth to 12th grade. I’m majoring in English because I truly enjoy the classes that come along with the major and every other aspect of it such as reading and writing. To say people choose to be an English major or an art major because we’re not smart enough for anything else is an assumption based off of pure naïvety.
2. We chose the easy way out.
Just because our majors aren’t the most strenuous and difficult majors colleges offer, that doesn’t mean they're easy. Most of the times our exams, which most commonly would be question/answer based in other majors, require us to write lengthy essays or create some type of time consuming artwork. English majors are assigned pages and pages of reading per night and commonly are asked to write detailed responses to them. And on top of having to read already dense material, throw some Shakespeare into the mix, which is basically written in a language that doesn’t even sound like English.
3. We need a constant source of inspiration or we can’t create anything worthwhile.
I can write almost anything, any time, any place. To think that we need to have just gotten our hearts broken and be sitting in our rooms alone in hysterics drowning our livers in wine just to be able to create something of substance is ridiculous. Some of my best work comes out of me being a sleep deprived insomniac staring blankly at my ceiling. Other times I’ll get an idea while walking to class. Either way, I don’t have to be on the brink of a mid-life crisis to be able to write something worthwhile.
4. We don’t care about making money.
This is by far one of the most ridiculous misconceptions you can make about an art or english major, and it’s sad to realize how many people value making money over having a career you truly enjoy. Growing up and going through middle school and high school you’re basically taught more times than not to pick a major that will be provide you with a career where you'll make a lot of money, rather than pick a major because you’re actually interested in the topic. You can tell me that I’m never going to make money as an english major as many times as you want, and when you’re sitting behind a desk hating your job and I’m becoming the next J.K. Rowling we’ll see who’s happy with their decision in the end.
5. We have no chance of achieving our dreams.
Even if we don’t become the next J.K. Rowling or Vincent Van Gogh, that doesn’t mean we’re not achieving our dreams. My initial dream was to get some of my writing published, and I’m already doing that. Life is about taking things step by step, and if I’m already achieving some of my dreams, I’m pretty confident that things will continue working in my favor.
6. We need a Plan B.
If I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. No questions asked. We didn’t choose these majors because we weren’t sure what we wanted to do and just picked it at random. We chose these majors because we can fully invest ourselves into them and enjoy every second of it. These majors not working out for us in the end is not an option, so having a Plan B isn’t necessary.
7. We’re weird hipsters.
According to Urban Dictionary a hipster is defined as: "someone who wears a mixture of thrifted clothing and items bought at American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. Extremely tight jeans worn by both sexes, pairing these with either a band t shirt and a plaid shirt/v-neck and a cardigan along with Nike hi-tops/Vans/Keds. Females often wear retro style dresses and racerback tank tops without bras." Let me just start out by saying that there’s a kid in my literature class, also majoring in english, who wears a button down and dress pants every single day. Not every english or art major is a “hipster,” plain and simple. And if you think we’re weird, then so be it. Being weird is more fun than being dull and boring anyway.
8. We’re pretentious.
Just because we like to read classic books and go to art museums and talk about music and culture doesn’t mean we’re pretentious and I never understood where the correlation between those two things came from. I don’t “attempt to impress others by affecting greater importance than is actually possessed” like the definition of pretentious says I should be doing, because honestly, the world doesn’t revolve around any of us, and no one person is more important than another.
9. We're prone to having substance abuse problems.
Creativity doesn’t stem from having a drinking problem or coke addiction. Sure Edgar Allen Poe was an alcoholic and Stephen King is no stranger to a number of different drugs, but let’s be real, have you seen "Wolf of Wall Street"?
