Sitting in on the first week of classes at your university comes with a combination of emotions. Excitement, dread, anticipation and the smell of new notebooks and the voice of your professor reading the recycled syllabi fills the air. As an English major, one thing seemingly always happens in at least one of my English classes; a wise crack on the English degree is made. Why? I guess because as an English major, we know what we're signing up for. Either you're going to go on to teach, try to land a publishing/editing gig, or find one of the infamously rare jobs that hires English majors to do a job that society deems a contribution. So these jokes at the student, and most notably, the professor's own expense, allows us a chance to not only laugh at our alignment and dedication to our subject, but at society's complete disregard for our skills and our value.
I am sure this is not solitary to English only. I've heard within the English department: "Oh, we can't do math! We're English majors!" and "Why else would you major in English aside from loving to read and write?" and I assume that these fallacious statements occur in other fields. The only difference? Most of those fields that could crack on not needing to know who to craft a well planned essay with impeccable diction are deemed the highest paying and do the most for our society.
This is where I become confused. At one point in my college career, I wanted to teach English at the high school level and I looked into the grants that North Carolina had available for loan forgiveness. If I taught a STEM course (math or science) I could apply, but for some reason, the improvement and comprehension of our own language and source of communication is not needed to better the next generation, so, no grants for me.
Now, do not get me wrong. I value other majors for their worth. I believe every major gives you what you put into it; passion, drive and a sense of belonging to a subject. For the first time in many people's lives, your major is knowledge on certain topics that you own and can speak on without doubting yourself. You know your subject inside and out because of all the hard work you have put into it.
This is why I believe that while my major is important, others do as well. Similarly to how a college student can love marine biology and swimming with and studying dolphins, I love English and becoming immersed in books and papers. It's a part of who I am.
So while it is comic relief to make a wise crack at your own major, as I do myself when telling others what I am doing in college, I think we should all try and focus on the positives of the paths we have chosen. Yeah, Google may not be knocking on my door and trying to offer me a high paying position, but I can write a paper on an outside-of-the-box idea that I want to publish one day. I can write a novel that will wind up in libraries across the world. And better yet, I will actually understand our language, English, just in case we get caught up in the world of Emojis and decide that is a better way of communicating.
Instead of perpetuating stereotypes about our perspectives majors, why don't we explain why my major is important in the grand scheme of things? If you support and love each other as intellectuals and human beings, you'd be surprised what we can accomplish. Tell me why your major matters.
