I’m sick of people telling me English Lit is easy

As an English Literature student, I’m becoming sick of Science students telling me my degree is easy. “You won’t get a proper job with that degree,” they scoff.

I’m not going to lie, before coming to uni, even I thought my degree would be easier than it’s turning out to be. As an avid reader, when older students warned me about the incessant reading, I wasn’t worried.

The reading

However, reading nine books a semester is proving to be a trial. You Science students buy one or two, thick, yet straightforward textbooks that you can refer to throughout the whole semester. But the only way I’d be able to read all my novels, plays, poems and critical essays thoroughly enough for the exam would be if I was an octopus with eight pairs of eyes. I.E., it’s impossible.

The essays

Also, our essays are way more tough to write. Science students have to continuously reference throughout: we have to do the same, yet make sure our points are completely backed up with quotes from our texts and quotes from critics and quotes from secondary reading. Quotes, upon quotes, upon quotes, with our own argument threaded through, like some complicated knitted scarf.

The multiple deadlines

Maybe we have less contact hours, but it’s made up for in assignments. Arts student Aileen Booth told me that last semester she had more to do than any of her Science friends: “Last semester, I had more work than any of my pals, including the ones who do “real subjects”. I had 12 deadlines (all minimum 2000 words) and two exams. I had 26 contact hours a week in uni.”

we have to read so much

The lectures

Perhaps the biggest trial of all is enduring our lectures. They’re painfully boring, and lecturers name-drop so many authors and critics throughout that you dont’t know if Shakespeare said that or if Dickens argued that. Useless.

The lack of labs

Arts students don’t get this extra teaching time – all we receive is an hour tutorial per week in first and second year, and even then we’re not spoon fed. We’re expected to create discussions and form our own ideas.

The stereotype

Unlike Science students, Arts students must work harder to shake off the stereotype they are immediately associated with: edgy, obsessed with all things vaguely Shakespearian and incapable of buying anything that’s not vintage. And no, I do not want to become a teacher. Science students, on the other hand, are seen as versatile individuals, respected regarding their subject choice because they’ll probably end up saving the world, weather it be environmentally or curing diseases.

Don’t let this put you off being an Arts student though. All the work is worth it and, as much as I complain, I secretly love expanding my knowledge through the books we have to read. Can you obtain that satisfaction from studying cells and plants and stuff? I don’t think so.