I’ve gotten into the habit of laughing after telling people what I am majoring in. I say “just” before I say “English.” I sometimes add a “not as cool as yours!” if they told me their major first. No matter how I answer, it always ends up with me downplaying what I am doing with my life. I turn it into a joke before they get the chance to.
Let me clear something up before I begin: I am very confident that I will be able to find a job after graduating. I know, I know, the job market sucks right now. There have definitely been times when I have questioned what I’m doing, but I still love my major, and at the end of the day I’m glad I chose it. This contradictory habit really has nothing to do with my own self-confidence, but with how I know others will react.
A lot of people don’t understand what value a liberal arts degree has. People typically ask me what I’m “going to do with it.” Before I even get to answer, they make assumptions, and overwhelmingly, they land on teaching. It comes out as a question, but I know what it means. To them, teaching is the only concrete thing I will be able to do with my degree that makes a steady income.
I’m not going to lie—that is a very realistic path for me. I’m technically English pre-education, and I would genuinely love to be a teacher. It’s just not my first choice. But for every other English major who gets typecast as a future teacher, I tell the people asking, “no.” If I knew for certain that I was going to be an English teacher, I would have majored in English education. The truth is there are a lot of things I want to do with my life, and it all depends on what happens next and who I become—not who I am now. But there’s still this sort of insecurity behind my responses; I know they don’t think I’m doing something worth my time or money. And honestly, no matter how confident I am in my future, there’s always a voice in the back of my head telling me I’m not a good enough English major to really get anywhere with it.
I’ve pegged these insecurities as English major impostor syndrome—where I am a smart person and I do have a future, but I can’t stop feeling like something’s missing or I’m not doing something right.
Here’s what I mean. The last time I really, consistently read for fun was middle school. I once started reading “Pride and Prejudice” and never finished it because I couldn’t get through 10 pages without getting bored. When I finish writing essays, I don’t read over or edit them; I just submit them and hope for the best. Not to mention, most of the time I hate writing essays. I got a B in high school AP Literature. I spend a lot more time on TikTok scrolling through book suggestions than I do actually reading. I call myself a creative writer but only write something once a month. It’s usually short and horrible. The list could honestly go on and on.
On top of all of that, I’m afraid that if I talk in my classes, it will come across as stupid. While I mentioned before that I am pretty confident in my major as a whole, my real self-doubt comes from me as an individual. It feels like everyone else in my major knows something I don’t know, and if I open my mouth, they will all see that I don’t belong. It would be the worst for people to think I’m stupid in the one thing I pretend to be good at.
I know I’m not the only person who has felt this sort of impostor syndrome. A lot of other English majors I’ve talked to have expressed this same feeling—that their passions and their degree are not enough to amount to a career. They’ve added secondary, more “practical” majors, switched their majors to something else entirely, or felt immense anxiety over their future. On top of that, they feel like they don’t belong.
Despite the morbid and admittedly self-deprecating article I have strung together, I am here to tell you that those feelings don’t amount to anything. Let’s be real: it is natural to have self-doubt. It is up to you to get over it and make the most of your education and future career. Don’t listen to what people around you say. Do the best work you can do, and try to overcome this English major impostor syndrome.