As the new school year approached, another meeting was held to further prepare us for the next batch of kids. My boss, the owner of a gymnastics school, sat atop a table while her coaches sat around her on benches, absorbing her words.

“You are the best gymnastics coach there is. That is what you must portray. Do not admit to any child or parent that you do not know something. Those words should never come out of your mouth. You are the professional in this sport, and those kids look up to you. They need to know that you know everything, and can and will pass that knowledge down to them."

"Even if you don’t know the answer to their question or know how to spot a particular skill, you do not let them know that. You answer to the best of your ability, and you do not let them try the skill that you do not know how to spot. You tell them "Next week we will do it. We don’t have time today," and then you go and investigate how to make that happen; how to spot that skill, so you can come back the next week knowledgeable and ready.”

My boss’s main point was that each and every one of us has to become professional and act professionally within the workplace even if we’re still learning, which all coaches are; we never stop learning. With my boss’s words, “I am a professional.”

I am. That’s what my students see me as because I hold the knowledge that they wish to seek.

Within my job, I am viewed as a professional, but I’m not sure I can say the same for my academics. The majority of English majors, or any major that falls into the Humanities School, feels the heat from outsiders. Society views the Humanities as just not as important, compared to Management or Political Science, for instance.

Even Stony Brook University makes this assumption which can be argued through the many budget cuts the Humanities are continuing to go through. Adjunct professors who have been teaching for years are getting laid off, professors from the Science Schools are being brought over to double as writing professors, classes are being cut, and the day/times of class offerings are shrinking.

The Humanities School is dissolving because many see it as not important.

However, society needs students from the Humanities School just as much as society needs Management and Political Science students. Management and Political Science will not cooperate or stay afloat without Humanities students because Humanities students know how to effectively communicate through speech and writing, solve problems analytically, and work with a wide range of knowledge because Humanities students are not tuned to specific studies like Management and Political Science students are because Humanities students cover a broad variety of subjects.

The lack of care from professors within the Humanities School may be the problem why Humanities students feel as if they can’t go on to become a “professional” in their field like the Management and Political Science students can. The reason for this may be because the professors within the Management studies and the Political Science studies may care more, in a general sense, about their students because those students can go on to be “professionals” within their field.

If the professors within the Humanities studies are already thinking and have the attitude that their students are not going to become “professionals” within their study, is it likely that they will try as hard?

The reason why I feel that I am a professional at my workplace is because my boss makes me feel like I am and tells me that I am. Because she cares, I want to care. I want to prove to her, my students, and myself that I am a professional; that I do hold the knowledge to the sport.

Even though some people may not care and put forth the incentive that you cannot and will not be a professional, you must not think like that because everyone has the power to be a professional in whatever field they find themselves in, regardless of their major. Be your own inspiration and forget the professors and society that tell you you will never make it into the professional world. I’m an English major and I made it.