Decadent young woman. After the dance. Ramon Casas,1899.
Being a freshman and even a sophomore in college was easy. This isn’t to say that the courses are easy––they typically aren’t––but, at least, I knew that I wasn’t even halfway yet. What is my major really going to be? There’s no rush, I’m not even halfway! What was I going to do after graduation? Calm down, you’re only a kid! However, one’s junior year starts to make things more real. I had fully decided on my majors by junior year, but I had no idea what I was going to do. I had the startling idea that I felt directionless at the Christmas Eve dinner in my step-grandmother’s house. “What am I doing?” I silently scream at myself in her bathroom covered with blue paisley wallpaper.
I’ve never been great at big decisions because they inevitably mean change is coming. During high school, I had a couple of options regarding where I could go to undergrad. I ended up choosing the College of Charleston–– despite its proximity to where I grew up––because of the large sum of money I was offered. It was an easy choice (or hardly even a choice at all) to go to the place that would guarantee I would graduate without student loans. I went into my freshman year as an “Undecided” major with the vague idea that I enjoyed English more than any other subject. After much anguish, I decided fully on my majors (which I changed about four more times). I ended up with a double major in English and International Studies. What was I going to do with these? Who cares! Until suddenly, I really had to care (see paisley wallpapered bathroom freak-out above).
When one inevitably Googles “What can I do with an English major?” the typical culprits come up. I can be a teacher, an editor, or a writer. Except I knew I didn’t really want to do any of those things. As for Googling the same question but for International Studies, I can go to law school, become a politician, or get my MBA. Once again, I wasn’t having it. I knew that I wanted to get a secondary degree, but I had long ago begun debating in my head whether I wanted a master’s or doctoral degree. The more research I did, the more I ironically felt directionless about what I was going to do.
I knew I loved school, and I felt secure in the majors I had chosen. The things that I learned were of value to me for the sheer value of learning. And I knew, as Karren Swallow Prior wrote for The Atlantic, that literature “touch[es] the human soul,” making us more human by gaining critical perspectives otherwise closed off to us.” Last summer, I won a grant to get to do research on Victorian Literature. I felt as though I had somehow “hacked” the system––I was getting paid real money to do what I wanted to do for free. I wrote about William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and his portrayal of whiteness as a mask for women with malicious intentions. This felt like a lucky break, something that was not marketable because of the discipline it was in. I seemed to enjoy it too much for it to be impressive to the prestigious graduate schools I was applying to. However, at the end of the project, I realized I had written the best paper I had ever written. Not only was I writing about something I was passionate about (Victorian literature and women’s ability to navigate a patriarchal society), but I was proving to readers that I could make my own argument and effectively defend it to a conference audience of Ph.D.s and Ph.D. candidates.
Without knowing it at the time, I began to use a method by Laurie Grobman and E. Michele Ramsey in Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities: personal branding. If there’s one thing an English major and, more generally, the humanities can teach, it is how to write an effective story. This is where “boldly show[ing] your confidence in your humanities education” makes one stand out instead of falling behind (201). Creating your own story and emphasizing the importance of your own experiences, as I am doing here, is crucial. For instance, I took a course on Refugees and Forced Migration that decided my course of study in graduate school. The course defined the difference between commonly conflated terms like refugee, migrant, and asylum seeker and what the legal repercussions were. Furthermore, we discussed the immigrant experience, the idea of giving versus taking away “voice,” and governments’ ability to establish cultural “Others.” I went on to pursue an independent study with this professor following the conclusion of this course
When I first took the above class, I believed that it was a topic interesting to me as an International Studies student and that academia was the only path I could take if I wanted to continue learning about it. However, I’ve found through further research, including George Anders’ You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education, that this is a field that part of an “evolving” labor market and needs specialized individuals to help, whether in the policy sector of government or management of humanitarian aid (81). Instead of “traditional resume skills,” I present a unique personal brand in addition to my added abilities as an English major to empathize and write effectively. My English major gives me an edge, a “one-up” in the job market swarming with a sea of political science majors, while also aligning with my values as an individual.
The English course of study was not just a stepping stone, even if I am not going to graduate school to pursue an MA in Literature. In other words, it is a useful degree not despite but because. Because of the English major, I can write; some would even say I can write well every now and again. Because of the English major, I have developed relationships with faculty who have consistently advised and helped me to move forward with my graduate education. Even more, the English major has connected me with talented, intelligent peers that I genuinely enjoy being around. It’s not a second major I just do for fun or use as a supplement to another major. Instead, it has allowed me to develop into who I am and the career path I plan on taking. I could never regret it because it led me to where I am now. So although my nerves are by no means satiated by my indeterminate path, the sense of security I feel in my courses of study over the last four years gives me a level of confidence heading into the unknown.
I like how you pick up on how much confidence matters here–not internalizing the stale common sense about the value of the English major, not apologizing for it, but making it a core part of your brand. Much of your work in this class has reflected that confidence: a demonstration of your abilities as a thinker and writer rather than a more fraught defense. Well done!