Yes I’m an English major, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never get a job

It’s 11:50 pm, I have 10 minutes to finish writing my essay, add citations, and submit it to NYU classes. Once that is finished, once my fingers tips are black and blue from my frantic typing, I have to grab Pride and Prejudice and get my way through say the last 40 chapters. Then I’ll fall asleep at my desk, get maybe one or two hours of sleep before I wake up the next morning to repeat the entire process all over again. Write. Sleep Repeat. Write. Sleep. Repeat.

So is the life of an English Major. Don’t ever say we don’t work as hard as Engineering students. We may not have to do calculus and trigonometry, but do have to slodge our way through Wordsworth and Fitzgerald, analyzing words and images to the point of insanity. And at least there is a definite answer in Calculus: there is never an end to analysis, never a concrete answer that signals an end to a problem.

It is then understandable when a tipsy gent at a party derisively smirks at the fact that I am an English major, that I feel the sudden urge to slap him with a hard copy edition of Crime and Punishment. Everyone seems to be under the impression that not only is English a “soft” subject, but that our work will amount to nothing. If we’re lucky we’ll end up living at home and working at McDonalds.

Yes this is a bit of an exaggeration, but people do believe that English Major’s have nothing valuable to contribute to society and as such won’t have the same ease of finding a job as an Engineering or Environmental Science Major. To them Jane Eyre would be much better used as firewood. This argument isn’t new however. Society has been English bashing ever since the world began to industrialize hundreds of years ago. Who needs people to study the intricacies of literature when factories can provide all of our basic needs? Who needs hyperboles and similes next to cogs and whistles?

Percy Shelley in his essay, The Defense of Poetry, addresses and argues against this English bashing doctrine. His argument is that poets are essential to society because they reveal the universal truths of the world. They are the geniuses, the innovators of society. The ones that brought as the dark mystery of The Tyger, the ones that brought us a road diverged, the one’s that brought us rings and single ladies.

Bookstores get me excited

English major’s as well reveal the universal truths of the world. We are the scientists of truth you could say. We analyze what writers before us have written, we formulate arguments based off of those readings, and develop our own truths about the world. Without their work we wouldn’t be inspired by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Night, there would be no Diane Sawyer broadcasting the news on CBS, there would be no Mario Cuomo fighting the battle against AIDS in New York, and there would be no Stephanie Myers and thus no horny vampires to furnish your adolescence. Delete the English majors from your life and you are going to have a pretty big hole.

Like it or not English majors are here and here to stay. We are going to keep writing until 2am and reading dusty texts until our eyes are bloodshot whilst listening to our parents and friends telling us it isn’t worth it. We hear you friends and family, and we respectfully choose to ignore you. For as long as there is imagination and color in the world there will be a place for English majors to flourish.