"What's your major?"
"English."
"Oh, so you want to be a teacher?"
"You can edit my paper so that I get an A, right?"
Why in the world does majoring in English cause everyone to automatically assume you're pursuing a career in teaching? Being interested in English does not point directly to being a teacher any more than being a history major means working in a museum or a biology major means being a biologist. Teachers exist for every single one of the subjects that majors consist of, so why should English majors be the ones to constantly have to answer that question?
The next question people normally ask once they realize that I am not in fact going to be a teacher is what I am going to do with the major, usually accompanied by a relatively confused facial expression. People do not seem to understand that an entire world exists out there just for English majors. For example, an entire industry is devoted to books: writing them, editing them, publishing them. English majors have most likely been the writers of a large amount of some of the most popular movies in theaters today. Marketing jobs are even available for English majors.
One thing that others do not seem to consider is the amount of writing that we do. No, it does not always come easily, but when we have a paper due for a gen ed class, such as history or philosophy, writing a couple of pages does not seem hard at all after writing 15 pages on Ernest Hemingway. Suddenly, everyone else in that gen ed class is asking us for help with editing their papers, making sure that they do not fail for having too many grammatical errors. This idea that we can edit your paper to perfection is another misconception. Studying English does indeed make us more attuned to grammatical mistakes, but no one is perfect. We can't turn your work from a D paper to an A paper. Don't count on a few corrections to change your entire piece.
Now, I am in no way asking to be worshipped for choosing English as my study focus. I simply wish that the rest of the world would understand that majoring in English should not be seen as any different from majoring in psychology or physics, at least as far as being able to get a job goes. And if you are not convinced yet, I have included the link to another article that lists 35(!) jobs for English majors, which does not even include a teacher.
