You may have heard of the FOX series, Scream Queens, and thought, Oh, this seems like a pretty stupid show. It is. The premise of the first (and currently airing second) seasons is a previous murder playing out in serial killings in the present day. All of this mystery and gore is juxtaposed with the glossy and vapid lives of the “Chanels,” a dim-witted posse of girls who somehow manage to evade death. However, their lines are iconic simply in their brusqueness and humorous candor. In fact, they summarize (love that word!) the life of an English/literature major quite well!
It is quite certain that English majors (I’m, of course, eschewing a generalization) will relate to all of the below. Creds to Emma Roberts and her cohort for their fabulous deliveries.
You know you’re a lit major when…
1. ALL you do is read. A LOT. ALL THE TIME.
At your core, you love to read. However, in small amounts. Taking multiple literature classes, and having to discuss your fine-grain analyses of HUNDREDS of pages, is enough to drive one insane. Several books per week are expected. Keeping plots and characters apart can be difficult! Meanwhile, your STEM friends don’t consider reading “homework” and have solely problem sets to do.
2. You pretend like you enjoy all of that reading.
Beowulf are so fun! Especially, when you sacrifice the ability to read for pleasure, in addition to your social life. Books are our friends!
3. You recognize your paygrade.
THE DREAM. To an extent, English majors have accepted that we’re not going to be raking in the big bucks after receiving their diplomas. Because, our society doesn’t seem to value the utilization of the very means by which the world goes around: communication. But, at least we can do what we love!
4. You question the success of the rich and famous.
Taylor Swift, an "esteem" songwriter, employs the repetitive and vapid chorus structure a bit too often. And this type of lyricism is valued? The art of rhetoric is truly at stake.
5. You wince a little bit every time you hear someone make a grammatical error.
Why haven’t you internalized the rules of prescriptive grammar?? Hearing “Me and Sarah”
6. Friends ask you to revise their essays.
As if we have the time to thoroughly revise our own!
7. Your friends are in awe of your brilliance (especially if you do help).
A diploma in English is so high-brow, especially if you use your linguistic skills to express it as such with ~high-brow~ diction like “high-brow.”
8. You hate seeing movie adaptations of your favorite novels.
They (usually) ruin everything: your visualizations, the character development, the most important scenes. Yet, you, for some reason, continue to watch them, hoping that they’ll improve, but always doing a comparative analysis.
9. You bond with your fellow lit majors.
We have to stick together! Lit friends are great people to exchange ideas with,
and our numbers are small (but mighty).
10. You love what you do, and do what you love.
We try our hardest to explore, to push ourselves to new rhetorical and ideological heights, to keep chasing waterfalls.
Of course, I’m probably reading too much into this. However, that’s my ~speciality~.
