Every college student has that one conversation memorized between them and a person who asks them what they’re going to college for, and what they plan to do after they graduate. We’ve rehearsed it a ton of times and we can already guess the responses we are going to hear before they’re even said. As an English major, I can’t help but do a mental sigh whenever I have someone ask me, “So what are you going to school for?” I take a deep breath, tell the person that I’m majoring in English, and prepare myself for one of the four possible eye-rolling responses that I am sure to get. Here are four responses English majors are tired of hearing when we tell other people what we’re studying:
“So you want to be a teacher?”
We are pretty much guaranteed to hear this one. Here’s a little fact that might surprise everyone: not every English major wants to be a teacher! There are actually a lot of professions an English major could pursue. Getting a degree in English teaches a person to write, comprehend, analyze and think critically. The degree offers us skills that can actually be applied to a wide variety of careers, teaching is just one of them.
“Ohh alright! So you’re able to help me with writing my papers then, right?”
This one usually brings out an obligatory chuckle but in all reality, helping with writing or editing another person’s paper actually doesn’t sound fun at all. We’ll happily help out a friend or a roommate when they need it, but as for the rest of you, editing your paper sounds pretty tedious.
“I bet you’re always correcting people’s grammar!”
As amazing and totally talented English majors are, we’re not experts on grammar, nor do we really care if someone is using it correctly or not. I mean, we understand and appreciate the correct use of “your” and “you’re” but we’re not sitting in the corner judging people’s grammatical correctness while they’re speaking.
“Okay…so what are you going to be able to do with that degree?”
This one is pretty limiting and similar to the teacher assumption. Like I mentioned before, the English degree prepares a person for a variety of careers. Whether we end up being your future lawyer, publisher or a journalist for your favorite magazine, we are going to be just fine.
