Majoring in English feels like finally gaining a certificate in a skillset I have been dealt at birth and developed throughout my entire life. It feels like finally reaching a blackbelt in karate. Reading, writing, and discussing, have been things that I’ve loved to do from the moment I was taught how. My natural inclination towards language has only blossomed with the support of educators who saw this within me–a healthy mix of nurture and nature. Taking these natural abilities and developing them into something “viable” is why we pursue an education in English. Without any direction, I feel it would be easy for an English-oriented mind to get lost in the world of language.

With that being said, English majors are constantly faced with the question, “How can you use that in the real world?” The practicality of an English degree is typically questioned because it is not directly linked to one certain career (besides being an English teacher). We English majors can clearly and confidently list the practical skills we’ve developed throughout our degree—critical thinking likely being at the top of the list. But what does critical thinking actually mean?

US Department of Education Standards for Critical Thinking defines critical thinking by the following standards: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth & breadth, logic, significance, and fairness.

In Amanda Hiner’s article, “The Viability of the English Major in the Current Economy,” she offers a great interpretation of these standards, “At its core, critical thinking can be defined as metacognitive thinking that is self-conscious, self-reflective, and self-correcting; that relies on standards and criteria of logic; that uses questions to reason things out; and that produces an authentic belief in the validity of the reasoning” (Amanda Hiner, The Viability of the English Major in the Current Economy). I think that this perfectly captures the essence of what the process of critical thinking looks like. These cognitive and metacognitive skills are things that come very naturally to English majors, and most individuals in the Humanities fields.

While reflecting upon the projects that I’ve worked on over the past four years there are a few that stand out. The first project asked that I explore key terms relevant to the theory and practice of my personal writing. I included this image because much of my project described the ingredients that makeup language comprehension. Something I noticed throughout the project was the balance and tension between the “abstract” and the “concrete.”

We live in a world of abstract concepts, thoughts, and ideas. It takes a very refined group of skills and tools to turn abstract concepts into concrete thoughts. Developing these thoughts and communicating them effectively is another layer entirely and ties back into the previous description of critical thinking. It requires you to be clear, accurate, relevant, consider breadth or depth, and to be logical

In another project, that I did in an English Education class through the Education department, we were asked to write about and discuss our teaching philosophy. Capturing the essence of why English is so valuable was natural for me. Explaining how and why I would be a successful teacher allowed me to spend time reflecting on the values of an English education. In the book Sensemaking, Christian Madsbjerg identifies terms like the way Humanities-trained people can: “encounter other worlds,” “imagine other worlds,” “have an acute perception of our own world” and can “recognize patterns to generate insights.” I agree, and these descriptions concisely articulate my six-page teaching philosophy.

Lastly, I believe that projects that all English majors are no stranger to—the literary analysis paper—seemingly useless in the “real world,” are actually the highest form of critical thinking. To be specific, one of my favorite papers to write, a literary Analysis of The Odyssey, required me to closely meet the standards of critical thinking: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth & breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. Additionally, I had to clearly and effectively communicate abstract ideas and turn them into concrete points.     

As an individual entering the world of sales and business commerce, I know that my English skillset is not only transferrable in the business world but both valuable and viable. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s not about the content I’m working with but the ability to become completely consumed by an interest in learning and sharing what I’ve learned. This ability is essential in a sales profession and is termed “product knowledge.” Learning about new products (for me specifically, medical devices) uses the same passion and skillset as becoming engrossed in a novel, poem, or essay.

Throughout each paper I’ve written, from literary analysis of Pope essays to Young Adult fiction novels, the common thread is clearly articulating my interpretation of the content and persuading others to believe and adopt my perspective.

Part 1: The Value of English

For me, my college career has been everything but straightforward. After majoring in Communications and playing volleyball at Wake Forest University for two years, I realized that if I continued to focus on my sport and major in something I had no particular interest in, I would end up completely lost at the end of my college career.

After transferring to the College of Charleston, I majored in arts management for two years until I realized that that was not my path either. It was during the summer of 2022 that I was registering for classes (to complete my arts management degree), and I called my parents crying because none of the classes I had to take were ones I felt passionate and curious about. Instead, they all felt like a chore. So, we began brainstorming my options, which I was completely reluctant to at first. But then, as the conversation continued, the idea of being an English major came up, and suddenly, it felt as though everything began to fit together.

I realized that when I looked around my room, it was covered in books. When I reflected on the things I enjoy the most in life, it was writing poetry, journaling, and reading. And when I thought back to my favorite classes and teachers growing up, they were always the English ones. At that moment, the lightbulb went off, and the steps forward became so clear.

It was then, too, that I thought of all the possibilities being an English major would offer me. All the things that I really love in life, all the things that bring me the most joy, were things I could be a part of, having majored in English.

One of the important aspects of English is that it is rooted in sensemaking, an idea presented by Christian Madsjerg in his book Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm. In this book, he breaks down several principles that make up this idea of “sensemaking” in the humanities and applies these skills to the professional world.

One of the principles that stood out to me was principle 3: “The Savannah-Not the Zoo.” In this, Madsjerg explains that to properly understand and relay information about the human experience, you have to be a part of that human experience (16-18). True knowledge and wisdom, when it comes to human nature, cannot be simply observed from an outsider’s perspective. It is something that you, too, have to personally experience. This knowledge not only comes from observing others on the inside but also from observing yourself.

Part 2: The Potential of Projects

When I considered how an English major might translate to the working world, the first project that came to mind was an essay I wrote for my 299 class. My primary source was my favorite film, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, and I focused on the film’s theme of motherhood. Through researching and writing, I dove into the multifaceted aspects of motherhood, exploring its themes of love, sacrifice, and societal expectations. By studying and pulling from books, personal memoirs, and scholarly articles, I gained insight into the different experiences of motherhood. I learned more about adoption versus birth mothers and the evolution of the mother-child relationship as both parties age. Through this research process, I got to better understand why people have children and the deep dedication and grit it takes to be a parent.

In an excerpt from Ramsey and Grobman, Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities (2020): Chapter 4, “Beyond Jobs and Careers: The Enduring Value of the Humanities,” they discuss how English contributes to the common good. They explain that intellectual, artistic, and moral pursuits have intrinsic value. These types of pursuits (much like this essay) “enrich our lives and the lives of those around us. They open up new worlds and new ways of thinking to us, and they challenge our traditional, and sometimes even mindless or outdated, ways of thinking and acting” (54-55).

Going into this essay, I was convinced I would argue against being a mother. I sometimes feel as though having children as the main goal in everyone’s life is incredibly outdated. When I think about the world we live in and how difficult it is to be a “good” parent, I wonder why we do it. It was not until writing this essay that I began to change my mind. Not entirely, as I still have my reservations, but my empathy and understanding of this human experience expanded exponentially and can be applied in my future ventures.

The second project that seemed to have a sense of viability was a poem I wrote for a 220 poetry course over the summer. Poetry is something that I have loved my entire life but have not really been keen on sharing with other people. It was not until this class that I realized how important it is to share. The feedback I got from this particular poem was overwhelmingly positive and made me realize the power of sharing your work. I wrote about my memories in the house I grew up in, and although my childhood was pretty unorthodox, everyone commented about how they, too, had felt they grew up in that house. It was through this experience that I learned how easy it is to find commonality between people and how important it is to share your life through words.

The third project is a final paper I wrote for my ENGL 300 class. I chose to do the more creative writing option, and I ended up rewriting a couple of chapters of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels from the perspective of a woman. As a primarily “man vs nature” novel, I found it incredibly interesting to reinvent it through the eyes of a woman. Going back to Ramsey and Grobman’s book, they discuss the importance of reading canon.

“Simply put, we teach the canon because it’s important to see where we’ve been, and much of the work is valuable…We believe that teaching the canon and challenges to the canon encourages students to question, interrogate, evaluate, and judge through and within all the complexities of history, power, ethics, justice, reason, facts, science, and more” (54).

I think being an English major, you can easily get bored or annoyed by how often we read “classics,” but I believe there is so much value in taking the time to do so. Through a project like this, I got to reimagine this old story from a completely new perspective. I began asking questions about what would change about the story (little things, big things)? How would the relationships in the novel develop differently? Would the portrayal of the relationship between humans and nature be different? Through this type of evaluation, I feel as though we gain so much from reading canon and classics. We better understand where we have been, where we are now, and where we want to go.

Majoring in English has been so valuable to me personally because I feel like I’ve learned so much about many different areas of life. I’ve learned so much history, I’ve learned about culture, and I’ve learned the most about people. I think the ability to read, absorb, and critically analyze texts from all over the world has given me a lot of experience with people’s emotions and how they deal with them. I’ve been introduced to a lot of different stories, so, not to say that I’m prepared for ‘anything,’ but I feel as if I’ve experienced a lot.

One of the biggest ways that I could see my English skills being valuable to the job market is through my ability to deal with ambiguity, a trait that Anders talks about in “You Can Do Anything.” On page 109 he says that a liberal arts education has given us the knowledge of, “[how] to move forward as a researcher in the face of ambiguity.” 

In the past, I’ve seemed to have made it a habit to choose very interesting–my paper topics have been called “sophisticated” but I think that’s just a nice way to put it–yet difficult topics or arguments for my papers. Either they’re widely under-researched or not suited for the length of paper that I’m attempting (that is the paper would end up being a dissertation of sorts). There have been three major papers in my college career that I have had to spend a large portion of my time dealing with inadequate research, unconventional topics, and unfamiliar technology. 

One of my projects was a final paper for a class in which I had to compare a document from the Enlightenment, period, Alexander Pope’s ‘Essay on Criticism,’ and a contemporary piece of media; I chose John Waters’s film Pink Flamingos (1972). For the paper, I had to research reviews of the film when it originally was released, however, because Waters’s film was very underground–it only had midnight releases–this meant that many mainstream newspapers or magazines did not review the film.

Through some creative thinking and the help of the library research staff, I was able to find some really incredible authentic sources. I had to visualize my route to success before I knew what it was. In addition to that, the two pieces of media that I decided to compare were very different. this gave me the ability to work with material that usually doesn’t go together (these are two very different texts). Though the material itself was not unfamiliar, I still had to learn how to make two things that are not similar seem cohesive. 

Another one of these projects was a final paper for my American Film Genres class. I decided to write a paper on pirate movies, professionally known as the Swashbuckler genre. Without any prior knowledge of this genre, I began my research and I found it incredibly difficult to find history or journals of substance about the genre or answers as to why it’s not as popular as it once was (in the 1940s). My professor even gave me the option to change my topic before it was too late, but I stuck with it. Eventually, I scrounged together sources to begin my research. 

My information grew as did my paper. Though I still had very little to work with, it allowed me to look in interesting places to find information. From there I was able to create a comprehensive and clear final paper about the Swashbuckler genre. In the end, it was wonderful to be able to learn about something that not a lot of people know about but also kind of contribute to a subject that’s under-researched. My ability to come up with creative solutions, my “willingness to [keep] jump[ing] into new areas,” and my ability to create something out of very little are three qualities that I’ve learned from my English degree (87, Anders).

I also learned quickly how to work with media and equipment that I hadn’t worked with before when taking a Film Production class. Most of my time in college has been spent focusing on the academic and the writing part of film, so very recently I filmed my own short film for class. I “improvised my way to success”(81, Anders).

Is it good? No. Did it meet the rubric? No. Did I try my best and learn something new that I can now fine-tune? Absolutely and I’m glad I took the class even though I was scared out of my wits because I didn’t have any prior knowledge of filmmaking. Also, this is kind of like what Anders was talking about when people with Humanities degrees also take classes in coding; it’s about acquiring one new technical skill that opens up new jobs. Unfortunately, I do not have this project because it was on my computer that broke. Sorry.

In my first blog post, I talked a lot about empathy and how being sensitive has been a driving factor in my journey to graduating with an English degree. Though empathy has not helped me specifically with these projects, my ability to step into different spaces, see new angles, and work within uncomfortable circumstances with ease are very similar. The skills that I have as a person and acquired while in college are in no way “useless,” they just needed better explanations as to how they can benefit a company.

Blog Post 3 – Academic Work Inventory

English has been valuable to me personally in terms of individual development and creative development, but it has been extremely viable for me professionally, considering that I am planning to work in a career that is extremely focused on constant reading, drafting, and analysis, down to the most minute word. 

As a lawyer, I will need many of the skills depicted by the texts we’ve read (Anders’ “You Can Do Anything” and Madsbjerg’s “Sense-Making”), but the two most important for me will be Anders’ ideas of the “Rapport Sector,” and “Reading the Room.” As a lawyer, I plan to work in end-of-life law. This means that at the most basic level I will be working with people who are planning for death, people concerned with their legacy and their past. This means that I’ve got to be able to work with all types of people and I need to listen to them to discover exactly what they want. I need to be able to develop a rapport with my clients so that they will be open and honest (especially because the issues are typically sensitive, revolving around family issues or regrets). I also need to be able to read the room – I will be dealing with family members and other influencers, as well as other attorneys. I will need to be able to take all of these influencing factors into consideration while also remaining impartial.

I have learned many of these skills from being an English major undergrad, but there are three projects I’ve produced that showcase these skills:

1. The Oral Histories of the Holocaust Project
2. My Internship
3. My Bachelor’s Essay

1: the Oral Histories Project: 

I enrolled in a small Jewish Studies class where each person was matched with a Holocaust survivor or descendant of a survivor, and we were set to interview them to learn about their personal story of survival, their experiences in immigrating, and their time as a South Carolinian. Although I knew a lot about Holocaust history, something new that I learned was how to listen without a script – especially with an interviewee with a voice as powerful as David Popowski. What I mean by this is that I learned how to listen fully without anticipating what was coming next and without focusing on what I was going to say next. I had been learning this skill for a while, but it culminated during our interview. It wasn’t necessarily new knowledge about the world, as I’d heard people talk about this forever, but it was new to me in the sense that it had been hiding in plain sight, covered by my ego. I had created a four page document with tons of questions and pathways to take, but after we got together, he threw everything off the rails. I didn’t even really get back to “leading” the interview until halfway through, but it was absolutely worth it. 

This practice shaped my own disposition and translated to my career path invaluably. As someone working with end-of-life patients, most of them realize that there is no fix. Most people then want a presence to be there for them and to listen. I don’t have it perfect, though. My ego still gets in the way at times, and sometimes I am simply too nervous about being perfect that it backfires. But this skill will work not only for end-of-life care, but any other career path I go into. It is always a good skill to be able to make people feel seen and heard.

2: My internship with the Virginia Attorney General

For summer 2023, I interned with the Virginia Attorney General, working with victims of violent crime. This wasn’t really something that I wanted to do (why didn’t they put me in the health law sector?), but it ended up being incredibly valuable for my career path. My job was to comfort victims and explain the appeals process to them. I was generally their one link between the person who changed their lives in a horrible way, and to justice. That sounds pretty lofty, but it really was often the case. Most of the people I worked with had zero experience with the legal system. Further, many of the clients were of different ethnicity, faith, and culture than me – which is exactly what Madsbjerg talks about with their idea of “Culture – Not Individuals”. We have to look to bridge the gap between peoples and see why people act the way they do.

3: My bachelor’s essay: “Jewish Views on End-of-Life Care”

My senior year bachelor’s essay is a literature review, survey, and interview collection that I have been working on for the past year and a half. This work is listed under sociology – it’s not a typical bachelor’s essay for an English major. It has been a ton of work, but what I’ve learned is that my skills from English are vitally transferable to other fields such as sociology and data analysis. Further, this project embodies Madsbjerg’s idea of “Thick Data – Not Just Thin Data” – I’m working beyond the statistics, gaining a holistic understanding of Jewish people’s views on end-of-life care engaging a more human experience, rather than an answer to my question on a scale of one to five. 

Many of these English values are the same as what I discussed in my first blog post – the value of an interdisciplinary degree and the value of an empathetic degree that allows one to work with people from many different worlds. What’s so interesting is that these values are distinctly human – the value of connection, of listening, of noticing, of being. That means that values and viability are often quite closely connected, which is something important to think about for us humanities students.