Recently, I was on a Zoom call with a friend that turned into a reminiscing session about the good old college days. Nostalgia reigned, as we spoke about our time at Dawson College where we were both in the English Literature program. We spoke about how choosing our college major was a momentous decision for us. Being that it was such a big decision, it was understandable that everyone spent quite some time deliberating and often approached the decision-making process with some unease.
The conversation slowly drifted to us talking about how one’s chosen major can affect the way others perceive them. Often, people would speak about their college major in the same way that they tended to speak about zodiac signs. They would say, “that was such a business major thing to say” or “you think that way because you’re a science major.” Even a quick Google search yields dozens and dozens of articles titled “What does your college major say about you.” In reality, whatever you choose to study for two or three years likely says something about you as a person. This idea got us thinking about what people assumed about us, seeing as how we were English Literature majors, and we tended to be an eclectic bunch.
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You’d be hard pressed to find an English major who isn’t trying to build a book collection. Although, it’s worth mentioning that people can fall into two categories: taking pride in owning pristine book editions or taking pride in how “well-loved” their books are.
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You might keep a journal or a diary.
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People are always asking you to edit their essays, research papers, or any sort of writing they may have to do. Chances are that you’re really good at it too.
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You often find yourself being analytical and critical of things. Once you’ve learned to do this, it can be very hard to stop. It might rear its head in many ways; namely on the car ride back from the movies in which everyone wishes you would stop talking about the symbolism in that one scene.
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You have one book or author that you read in your adolescence that you’re obsessed with. You probably will never stop talking about them for the rest of your life.
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You recognize the distinct beauty of both the new book smell and the old book smell. You might have your preferences, but you have to admit that there is nothing else quite like it.
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Often, you find that there is a difference between the reading you do for class and the reading you do for pleasure. For this reason, you could be reading three books at the same time and still say “I haven’t read anything in a while.”
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You can spend hours browsing the shelves of your local library or bookstore in search of your next great read.
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You’ve had a crush on at least one fictional character.
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You probably lied and pretended not to like reading the classics in high school. Or shamelessly enjoyed them.
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You’ve dressed up as a literary character for Halloween.
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You might have a strange sense of humor. A lifetime of literary references means that you likely make a lot of quirky jokes.
