In my spring junior semester at the College of Charleston, I worked on a paper that helped a great deal with broadening my skills as an English major for my future. The class that this work was for was focused on how literature relates to nature, more so how man interacts with nature in specific texts, like Robinson Crusoe and The Tempest. Like most of my English finals up to this point, there were various topics that I could write on, but I chose one that centers around a reimagined Robinson Crusoe, where Robinson is actually a woman instead. With this topic, I had to write numerous scenes of the woman Robinson interacting with nature and how it differs from how the male Robinson treats nature. I then had to write a paper on the background of my woman Robinson, and how the story differs from the original, nature- and character-wise. While at first it seemed easy, it was the semester I had decided I wanted to become a writer, so I was desperate to write anything in any form. But as I delved into the character development of my woman, Robinson, I found myself hitting a pretty big wall. I had no experience in this type of world before.

This was the first time I had ever encountered Robinson Crusoe; I had never read it before. So while the material was fresh in my mind, I felt intimidated because I had never written any fiction that took place in a different period before. I decided that I would reread Robinson Crusoe, and in the middle of my rereading, I realized I really did not have to connect to the setting at all for this paper to work; I had to connect to Robinson. Through Robinson, I could see how he interacted with the world around him and how that would change to see a woman in that setting. I wouldn’t call the project easy after that, but I had a solution and now knew what I was looking for. From there, I created a whole new character by the name of Jane, who was shipwrecked on an isolated island in the middle of traveling from England to America after being forced into an arranged marriage. 

From this paper, I utilized the skill of encountering worlds and interacting within that setting with this work, as I created an original character within this world. While the shipwreck on an island is the same, the circumstances surrounding it are completely different. I took an already-created world and got introduced to a new one within the aforementioned world in the process of this project. The second skill that I built up and maintained through this paper was how to have a good perception of our world, as that is essential to understanding how other worlds work too. Because this course had a lot to do with nature and how man treats it, that allowed me to be more grounded in the nature of this planet. Helping me better understand how to treat it in a healthy way and open broader horizons. Like if, in the future, I would try to write a story relating closely to this world’s nature that I could portray sensibly. 

But how did I acknowledge that I even had these skills in the first place? Because humanities-trained people harness this method of thinking called “sensemaking,” coined by Christian Madsbjerg in his book titled Sensemaking: The Power of Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm, The term revolves around “practical wisdom grounded in the humanities” and focuses on the deeper meaning rather than the wider. I feel like I did not know how to put the true benefit of an English major into the correct words until I read about this term. Each one of the five principles that make up sensemaking I consider to be an essential skill that I will carry with me as I set out on my career journey. The main issue that I have been grappling with, though, is which one will be the most viable for me when I go forth on said journey. As you will soon see, my answer has changed from my previous blog posts, but it is the fifth principle called “The North Star—Not the GPS.” This prioritizes interpreting the facts and signs given to us in life instead of relying on our advanced technology to do the work for us. As Madsbjerg states, “The tools of navigation have always been available to all of us. But we must take responsibility for interpreting them.”

I believe this skill is the most viable for me at the moment because I would not say I have this certain principle in me. I hate to admit it, but I do rely on technology to interpret the signs of my life for me instead of making my own brain do it. I focus on what the internet would think, not what I would. I feel that to excel in my career, whatever it might end up to be, I will have to read opportunities in many different fonts, be able to recognize them for what they might be, and then take them. 

I have found that in this short amount of time that we have been in this class, I feel my opinions changing from my previous blog posts. I have found that I like that my perception of English as a major will always progress and shift as I dive into my career path. For me, my opinion on the skill of empathy and how my opinion has grown in the way that I feel it is because of being an English major is that I have grown immensely in that specific skill. In the article, ‘Does reading fiction make us better people?’ by Claudia Hammond, she talks about how people who read more fiction have better empathy. Before, when I covered this article in Blog Post 1, I criticized the fact that empathy should not be the only emotion taken into consideration when judging the morals of a person, but I see now that the article’s purpose was not just to point out how empathy is more common among fiction readers.

For this course, this article was to show how empathy can be a great skill I can harness as an English major when I go forth on my career path because empathy is truly diverse in where it is needed in jobs. As seen when Hammond brings up an example focusing on how empathy can be essential to the medical field, she writes that multiple doctors firmly believe “that reading fiction results in better doctors and has led to the establishment of a humanities programme to train medical students.” (Hammond). I feel this quote emphasizes how much of a necessity the skill of empathy is in the general career field instead of just one section of it. 

It is because of this course that I have allowed myself to think about all the genuine skills that being an English major can bring to the career field. I am able to connect with other periods and times, to understand the characters in them, and to care about them. I saw from my paper that I genuinely cared about Jane and her character arc, even though I only wrote a few pages of her story. It is definitely a project I want to return to some day, as it taught me so much about myself as a writer and student. Being an English major has taught me how to prepare for my future, from allowing me to connect with people I have never met to allowing me to recognize any sign that is in my way. While I am still learning to utilize these skills, I can see how helpful and essential they will be.