Name: Jenna McKenzie
Year: Sophomore
Major: English, Medieval Renaissance Minor
Hometown: Bremerton, Washington
Her Campus Ithaca College: What’s your favorite place at IC?
Jenna: 5th floor of the library, study room.
HCIC: What kind of music do you listen to?
JM: Alternative pop punk.
HCIC: If you could travel anywhere, where would you go, and why?
JM: New Zealand. I love rugby and Lord of the Rings, and New Zealand is the center for both.
HCIC: What’s your favorite animal?
JM: Horses, I guess. I used to ride.
HCIC: How did you decide to be an English major?
JM: I started at Ithaca as pre-med, but I took the Shakespeare in America seminar with Chris Matusiak and I just really liked it. I liked the subject and the exploration of the plays out of the context of their original setting. I also found that I was much better at the essay style of grading than the tests that were given in pre-med classes. When I dropped pre-med, I decided to try English as a major. I looked at the course listings and almost every course interested me, and I knew that as they were all essay based they were more personalized to stuff I was interested in.
HCIC: Do you think there’s a pressure to go into trade based or high paying professions as opposed to studying the humanities? Did you feel this initially?
JM: Yeah, there definitely is. When I was pre-med, no one really questioned what I was going into, but when I started majoring in English everyone asked what I was going to do with the major, and if I was going to be a professor. Now that I’m in the humanities, I’ve noticed a lot more that people question me than when I was a science based major.
HCIC: Any advice for incoming freshmen/English majors?
JM: Take what classes interest you. You can always find a major or minor that builds off of that, regardless of what you think you want your career to be.