“So you’re an English major? That’s gotta be pretty nice, right? Like…how hard could that really be?”
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this sentence since coming to college. Even in high school when I told people I wanted to major in the humanities, I’d get a small smile and chuckle quickly accompanied by an eye roll.
“You’re smart. Why not do something a bit harder? That might actually get you a job?”
Fast forward three years and it still annoys me when people asks me those same questions. It especially lights a fire when I’m told my major is easier than other majors.
Just because I don’t study the human body, doesn’t mean I don’t work hard.
College English isn’t like high school English. Majoring in English isn’t like taking an introductory course for your gen-eds. It is challenging. It might not be challenging in the same way that your major might be challenging, but that doesn’t mean it’s a "bird-course" major either.
I love English. I love writing. I love reading other people’s work. Majoring in English is well suited for who I am as a person. But that doesn’t mean it’s been a walk in the park.
When you decide to study English, you have a couple of choices: you can either walk into the bright and imaginative world of creative writing or you can venture into the dusty and cozy world of literature studies. From there, you have to narrow down your interests even further.
For me…I chose literature studies. While I enjoy writing, my true passion lies in research and in learning from other people. I have an invested interest in environmental writings. But the world of literature is vast and there are a plethora of choices that one can choose from.
Being an English major means dedicating hours and days to reading and writing and analyzing and tearing apart pieces of work only to put them back together again in a way that reveals the deepest nature and complexities of the words printed on the page.
It’s taking a single sentence and finding the authors purpose, the hidden intricacies that aren’t apparent to the naked eye. That joke about the blue curtain—the one where it’s a question of whether the curtain is simply blue or if it means something—is kind of true.
Being invested in English doesn’t mean we get to sit around and read our favorite novels all the time either. Sometimes, you have to read something that really sucks. Or a genre that you really hate. Sometimes you have to come up with something to write about when you have absolutely nothing to say. Sometimes, you just really don’t want to read anything. Sometimes you don’t want to write anything.
So next time you feel like tearing apart an English major—or any major for that matter—because you think that whatever you have chosen to do is more difficult.
Don’t.
We all work hard and we all want to succeed. So be kind to all majors. And think about what you’re saying when you tell someone that their major must be so easy.
