In my time as a college student, I've seen my fellow classmates choose to major in anything from biochemistry to theatre, or nursing to communications. However, I have also found in just my first year that I am one of a vast minority in regards to my own major. I come from a school that puts much of its stock into the large amount of nursing and occupational therapy students who are enrolled. Believe me, I do not exaggerate when I say that just about every other person I meet in my school majors in some form of medicinal curriculum. Then there's me.

So far, I have not heard any of my college friends say that they are majoring in the same subject as I am currently. Not only am I already one of a small amount of communications majors up at my school, but I am the only - and I mean only - other person I know of that is majoring in English. On top of that, I am definitely the only student I know chose to major in both at the same time.

Since I am a Comm/English double major, I am taking on twice the schoolwork for a common theme in language arts and writing. When others hear me talk about my major, a good amount are genuinely interested, supportive, and impressed that I have a concrete plan for my career. This plan (which has remained constant since I chose my major) is to pursue a job as an editorial assistant, which requires that I review works submitted by aspiring writers.

On the opposite side of the people-reacting-to-my-English-major spectrum, there are a number of those who will gasp in surprise and ask how I could possibly torture myself this way, and how time-consuming and uninteresting writing is. Overall, I have discovered a large amount of confusion regarding careers in English.

First of all, an English major doesn't spend every waking moment of his/her life writing paper after paper after paper. In fact, I've seen other students spending much more of their time writing than I do. Don't be fooled, however. What we English majors lack in the amount of papers we complete, we make up in the length and quality. This was one of my first lessons in English: papers don't just get finished overnight. A piece of writing is a process above all.

Here I use a personal experience from this past spring semester. While my friends completed nightly assignments for classes such as foreign language in this time, I spent my entire semester of Science Fiction Studies writing two separate seven-to-ten-page essays, one as an in-depth literary analysis and the other as an original short story. Aside from that, the class wound up collaboratively reading and analyzing over nine separate science fiction movies and novels. To say it was a piece of cake would be a complete and total understatement.

I want other people to know that I didn't choose an English and communications double major because I thought it would be easy. I knew from the start I wasn't going to just write a paper or two and viola, here's my diploma! I've only gotten one year finished in college, and I can already say with confidence that I've worked my ass off to get this far. So yeah, it isn't easy. Not at all. But I will tell you right now: it's rewarding as hell.

I am extremely passionate about English. To tell the truth, I've never felt more pleased with my accomplishments than at times when I find myself finally content with an original piece of writing. I want to be able to use my words and my knowledge of the English language to move people. I want to be able to convey the same passion I feel when writing a piece to others when they read it. I find beauty in the way a few words printed on a sheet of paper evoke an explosion of emotion in those readers. One day, I hope my words can do the same.