People ask me all the time, "What are you going to do with that?" This, of course, refers to my major: English. The second question I always get is, "So you want to be a teacher?" No, I don't. English majors are more than just teachers. Being a teacher is amazing, but not every English major is destined to be one. And of course, we all hear the comment, "That's not even hard." Well...

Allow me to break down what being an English major is all about and set some misconceptions straight.

No, being an English major is not easy

Every department can doubt us, but we don't just sit on the grass on a lovely spring day reading Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, or Shakespeare. Sure it's a lovely idea, but our workload is no day in the park. Sure, we're not in laboratories or figuring out some mathematical equation, but we are in libraries and doing extensive research for whatever paper is coming up. We read multiple books at a time, in a week, all while taking notes and creating annotations for class We need to set up ideas for class like anyone else, stay on top of the readings or be left behind, and maybe we don't always have finals or midterms, but I can guarantee you most of us are writing a paper somewhere between 5 pages and 15.

Yes, we are skillful

It's often believed that the English major is just a whole bunch of reading and writing. While that may be true, we have more skills than that. Our skills aren't just picking out symbolism or allegories, we do have actual skills that translate into the working world. We're excellent at arguing ideas. Both verbally and written, we find ways to defend our ideas and justify them. Not to mention, we're grammar and spelling pros, communicators, researchers, pro writers, and pro closer readers. On top of it all, we're also awesome storytellers. When you're sitting in an office for an interview and the hiring manager asks what makes you special, what your story is, we got this covered. In any gathering, storytelling is not only tasteful, but a decent way to get yourself out there and make friends where it counts.

Yes, we have plenty of job opportunities and we make money

Most of us aren't going to law school anytime soon and not every English major wants to end up teaching English from grades K-12. Because of our skills, we can basically go anywhere. We get jobs in publishing, copywriting, editing, blogging, advertising, event planning, and more. More importantly, we land jobs in human resources, sales, digital marketing, public relations, content management, and as analysts.

And yes, we do make a decent amount of money, with an average starting salary of $49,525.

So before you go judging us English majors, know that we're pretty happy doing what we're doing, we have a future, and we don't have it easy. No major should be judged, and humanities majors are no exception. Everyone has their place in the world. This is ours. Reading and writing is our thing. It's not easy, it can be fun, and we're happy we picked it.