As a third-year English major, I have heard my fair share of insults towards my degree. Sure, I GUESS your engineering degree is cool, but it doesn’t mean it’s more valuable than mine. I love being an English major and I honestly wouldn’t trade it for a degree in any of the other colleges at UTSA.
Here are eight things I, and my fellow English majors, are tired of hearing.
1. “You aren’t going to make any money.”
First of all, OKAY… Second of all, if I only cared about the money, then I would have chosen something else like engineering or business.
2. “Why English? Why not something else?”
I chose to major in English because it’s something that I love and know I’m good at it. I have never been good at math or science, so attempting to get a STEM degree would just cause for a lot of suffering.
3. “Oh, so you want to be a teacher?”
The answer to that is: NO. Not all English majors want to be teachers.
4. “Isn’t it a lot of reading?” Umm, YES. But in our defense, we probably chose to major in English because we love to read.
5. “So, you really like literature?”
This one is tricky. I have met many English majors that don’t like the literature portion of the degree (myself included), BUT there are others who live for literature.
6. “What are you going to do with an English degree?”
There are LOTS of things you can do with an English degree. Depending on your concentration or what interests you, you can be a writer, editor, teacher, or even go to law school! (These are just SOME options). It honestly all depends on the person and what they wish to do with their degree.
7. “My ______ (fill in the blank with someone you know) was an English major and he/she can’t find a job now.”
Again, OKAY… Just because you know someone that can’t find a job doesn’t mean we all won’t be able to get one, either.
8. “English? That’s so easy.” Try taking Advanced Professional Writing or Theory and Practice of Composition, and then get back to me on how “easy” it is.
*BONUS for those of us concentrating in Professional Writing* “Oh, so you want to write books?”
No… we don’t want to write books… It’s PROFESSIONAL writing, not creative writing. Those two are on completely different levels.
Although us English majors tend to get a lot of hate for our choice of degree, we still love what we chose. It’s not as easy as people make it out to be and we study just as hard as everyone else does to earn our grades.
So, the next time someone tries to put your English degree down, just remind them of how awesome you think it is and how happy you are with majoring in English. Forget the haters and keep on rockin’ that English degree like it’s the most valuable thing on Earth.