My journey to the College of Charleston was purely financial for me. My parents made it very clear that they could support my hopes and dreams of a higher education to a point. They were not going to spend a ridiculous amount of money putting me through college – and this I cannot blame them for. I am one of the extremely lucky people who can say they received not only emotional, but financial support to pursue a college degree. As a graduating senior at this institution, I cannot even believe I once thought of going to a private institution that could have sent this future version of me into a spiraling amount of debt. Luckily, my eighteen year old self was smarter than that – with copious amounts of advice from my well-knowing parents as well as the example of my older brother to follow.
I applied to the College of Charleston along with about eight other schools I had in my sights. The geographical locations varied slightly, but with my line up it was clear that I desired to stray from my home in New York. The southeast was clearly the religion I was drawn to with about eight of the schools on my list being located there. In response to the question “Why did you decide to go to school in South Carolina?” I always repeated a slightly automated answer which I still believe to be true. I decided to stray away from New York because that was an area I knew my whole life. It was now time for me to learn a new life. I wanted to stray away from the New York pace and lifestyle because I wanted to have different stories to tell. My eighteen year old self wanted to be a writer. I was always declared an English Major. How could I write stories about other people if I did not know anything about other people? It was my artist’s heart that led me to where I am today, and I could not be more grateful.
In retrospect, I do feel immense gratitude for my decision to pursue this course in life. However, I cannot deny that it did come with setbacks. One of the largest outward setbacks in my education took place during the spring break of my freshman year. Still having no solid friend group or confidence in my college life, I was sent home for a year with no warning. The pandemic halted the world, and many of my readers can most definitely attest. While this had a major impact on me and my studies, the most crippling deterrent during my undergraduate studies was an internal struggle. Many of my classmates are incredibly brilliant scholars who live and breathe what it means to be an English Major. They always had eloquent points when called on in class. They had close relationships with each other and the class environment. They simply seemed more equipped than I was, and this led to a drought of imposter syndrome that I was never able to completely shake. I am sure this is not unique to English studies, as I am bound to feel this in the professional world as well. But I do believe the English major has taught me to push through this myopic point of view and look beyond myself. No, literature I have read throughout my studies does not teach me the ins and outs of the stock market, but it teaches me about humanity. The inspiration and culture of what it means to be a human in this society, which is a much larger force than myself. As Paula M.L. Moya stated in her blog post “A close reading of a work of literature—as with a film, a painting, or a piece of music—can thus serve as an excavation of, and a meditation on, the pervasive socio cultural ideas of the social worlds, as well as the worlds of sense, within which both authors and readers live.” Just as this claim describes, reading a work of literature is such a broad concept that teaches so much, there is not simply one way of understanding.
Even though my imposter syndrome was present in the classroom, I found great confidence whilst alone in my room, chipping away at assignments from my professors. This is the reason why I had never once questioned my decision in the English major. I felt confident in my writing and my ability to communicate complex ideas. A project that I am particularly proud of is a research project from my junior year. This project was assigned for my Introduction to English Studies course, a requirement for all English majors to take before entering the upper level classes. This class was intended to provide students with the foundation to succeed in the English major. The course was centered around analyzing scholarly articles and utilizing them productively in our writing. The second half of this course was dedicated to creating an in depth research paper with each step serving as an individual assignment. This was incredibly useful, as it allowed me to nearly perfect each aspect of the research process at a high academic level. The product of this project was a paper about the film, The Truman Show. This paper observed the philosophical undertones, televisual realism, and societal control through the cinematic tropes of this film, resulting in a paper which argued that The Truman Show serves as a critique of modern society’s desire for distraction through visual realism. In Karen Swallow Prior’s “How Reading Makes Us More Human,” she describes the way in which literature touches one’s soul and causes them to connect with themselves and others. While this is an example of writing, not reading, I do feel as though this project touched me in a way that changed the confidence I had in myself and my writing. This project allowed me to fall back into the way I felt when I entered college with excitement.
As I reflect on my past experiences, I cannot help but look towards my future. With my education serving as the foundation of my professional career, I now feel even more confident in the direction I chose to pursue. This chosen path has provided me with the skills to adapt and learn productively. But most importantly, this path has taught me the importance of connecting to one another on a human level. Jasmine Guillory speaks about this in her article, “Writing fiction helps me relate with people who have inner and outer lives different from my own.” She goes on to say that reading fiction has the same power as writing it. And I can attest to the empathy one can gain from studying literature as well.
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