When asked “What are you studying?” and I reply that I’m an English major, I reliably receive the most-asked and inadvertently rude question that can possibly be asked: “What are you going to do with that?” And if it’s not spoken aloud, I can see it behind blind eyes. To be honest, it’s not just for English majors I’m sure; the futility of the degree is linked to a slew of other liberal arts majors that don’t directly correlate with a profitable, secure profession. Music, history, communications, art, philosophy, romance languages, sociology, and on and on.

It took me two years to declare my English major (along with a Spanish major) because of all the negativity planted in my head by people who were just trying to help me. And even then, I deluded myself into believing that a more stereotypically profitable career in law would be a good fit for me, as so prompted by my parents--only trying as they were to helpfully guide me away from a life of uncertain financial security.

What am I going to do with an English major? What are you going to do with an English major? Anything. You can do anything you want with an English major. If you’re an English major, you know you’re not trying to be an engineer or medical doctor; you possess little or no interest in the sciences and maths, or else you would’ve pursued those fields or at least dipped your toes into those pursuits. You know that’s not what you want, which narrows your scope down to what you do want. You know what you like, and you know what you’re good at--and that’s where you can find your niche.

You can do all the things people think of: you can be a journalist, you can go to law school, you can be a teacher. But there’s so much more. You can work in publishing. You can work in public relations. You could get a job in administration pretty much anywhere. You can be a screenwriter, a playwright, a novelist. You can work in advertising, sales, marketing. These are just some of the jobs we know about. How many times have you finished a movie, watched the credits roll, and then wondered in awe at the list that goes on and on, all those people playing a tiny but vital part in the production you’ve just viewed? That long list is like the rest of the job market: there are so many positions out there that we don’t even know exist, jobs that you stumble into, run upon as you go along what you think is a predictable path. These are jobs that need someone to do them.

I am an English major and I get to take classes I love. I get to feel a rush of excitement when I register for Contemporary Literature, Thinking through Poetry, Memoir and Social Crisis, Creative Writing. Even when the reading assignments are dauntingly lengthy and seemingly impossible, they’re doable because they’re something I genuinely care about, I’m profoundly interested in the work. Lectures and discussions are stimulating and thought-provoking, most especially because I’m surrounded by others interested in the same things as I am, offering up their own unique, differing, and novel opinions.

That’s not to say that there aren’t aspects that dim the romantic portrait I paint of the beloved English major; I certainly was not thrilled by the pre-1830s concentration requirement, the backwards-seeming Middle English translations, the accenting and discerning of iambs and meter and scansion, the analysis lectures that went a little too far, a little too “unspoken meaning beyond the meaning of the meaning of the meaning” (what?). The curriculum of reading and writing intensive courses can be stressful under the time constraints of college and the sheer number of hours in the day. When you have to read a 400 page book per week for one class, finish and annotate another dissertation for another class, and likely another class, and another class, and another class--all by the end of the week--and then write summaries, analyses, translations, and opinion papers for each novel, essay, story, thesis, speech, document, article, poem, collection, etc, Father Time suddenly seems less giving and more like a cruel ruler who doesn’t understand the way a schedule works. But, I suppose that is simply the expected stress of academia.

Maybe I’ll be poor and working at some dead-end job while I scribble away in my notebook behind closed doors with my shiny English degree propped up on the wall, pretty and useless. Maybe the happiness of pursuing what I love will be darkly overshadowed by the stress of unpaid bills, student debt, and depression. Maybe that negative perspective that perpetuates dominant opinion about the humanities will prove true, and I’ll look back and curse the fact that I didn’t go for that Econ degree. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll do everything and anything I want. Nothing happens overnight, but I believe that if you’re willing to put in the work and truly put forth the best you can for as long as it takes, it’ll pay off.

So, why am I an English major and what am I going to do with it? I’m an English major because I love it. I love what I’m learning; I love what I do. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with it, but I have a few ideas.