I love kids, don’t get me wrong. I have been a camp counselor and a baby sitter and occasionally, on those late weekend nights, played mom for my delirious friends. Heck, I was even a kid once, too. But I just don’t want to be a teacher. Yes, the vacation time as a teacher would be down right awesome, but I don’t want to stand in front of a class of about twenty-five teens for eight hours five days a week. Its just not for me.
Ever since I was able to read I have had my head in a book – even in a notebook trying to be like Rick Riordan (the author of the Percy Jackson series) and Sarah Dessen (a young adult novelist) because they wrote my favorite books and I wanted to be like them. And yes, I have read more than just their books in my life. When it came time for me to apply for college and I had to decide what major I wanted to be in, I decided to go with an English major (and even chose a writing minor) because I could continue what I was doing: reading and writing. And I was so excited to be apart of the major. However, what I wasn’t ready for was everyone who ever asked me what major I was pursuing would also immediately assume that I was going to be a teacher. I’m here to tell you, dear reader, that being an English major does not automatically mean that I, you, or an English major you may know will be a teacher, but whatever they want to be.
I am an English major because I like books and I have the opportunity to be in the book publishing industry whether that be creating, marketing, editing, etc. And I bet you think that my choice of career is another obvious one. But what if I told you that there are people who majored in English and didn’t even pick an “obvious” career choice? what would you say when I told you that there were people like Conan O’Brien who majored in English and is now a successful talk show host? How about one of the most amazing directors, Stephen Spielberg, was an English major and is now directing major motion pictures like Indiana Jones and E.T. And the most surprising of all (at least to me) the singer Sting – you know the lead singer from the band The Police and also well, Sting – yeah, he was an English major too!
If you don’t think my word is the best, then let me introduce you to some of the English professors here at Ithaca: Dan Breen (the Department Chair), Derek Adams, and Hugh Egan. Yes, they are English professors, doesn’t that make my point moot? No, because these guys are also advisors to English majors like myself who are studying, analyzing and critiquing whatever piece of literature they throw at us, but don’t want to be teachers. During the dreaded season known as Registration, they meet with us individually and talk to us about our life goals and reassure us that we can be whatever we want to be. I took the time to sit with each of them and talk about being an English major.