By Kate Stringer
It takes more than a quick skim of a student to guess they’re an English major. We don’t have neon orange surveying instruments spread across Academic quad or oversized goggles and crisp lab coats to identify our major. No, it takes a close reading to spot the details that make up a species of students addicted to the arrangement of words on a page or the cadence of iambic pentameter. Here’s a brief field guide to identifying them.
You know you’re a UP English major when…
Writing a paper either feels like a religious ritual or reinventing the wheel.
It’s hard to mask your jealousy of the people who win books at the all-English majors meeting.
OED is a verb, but “They say, I say” is a noun.
It’s hard to make eye contact with your English professor after missing last night’s lecture series author, even if you did have class.
Seeing your writing in Writers Magazine is like winning a Pulitzer.
You started planning your capstone as a freshman. You’re now a senior and somehow you still don’t know what your capstone topic is going to be.
The margins of your notebook are filled with quirky things your English professors say in class.
Every time you’re assigned a paper, you vow that “this time I’ll take it to the Writing Center.”
It’s hard to interact with people who don’t believe in the Oxford Comma.
You have secret plans for a novel. Or it’s already written but buried under your pile of journals filled with poems and short stories.
You get a twinge of pride carrying one of your many NUCL bags around campus.
Your body becomes a makeshift umbrella for your books when it rains. Other majors use their books as a makeshift umbrella for their bodies when it rains.
You spend a lot of time wandering between the second and third floors of Buckley Center, pondering the ultimate question of why the department chair’s office is on a different floor than the rest of the English department.
You feel like both a sinner and a hero when you hand in that 2000 word paper you didn’t start until last night.
You have prepared a speech to defend yourself against this classic snarky phrase: “English major? Ha! So what are you going to do with that?”
Did we forget any revelatory signs that mark a UP English major? Add yours in the comments!
Best ever. Thanks Kate!
A sharp-eyed anthopology here, with a thick description of the species’ culture.
Interestingly, these qualities are true whether the English major comes from the Bluff, or Pyongyang U. (North Korea’s radical liberal arts university), or Whatsamatta U.
Oh, one other quality: English majors are discernible by their ability to tap a contrapuntal backbeat to Dr. Orr’s percussive teaching.
Love this! I certainly can recall writing prof’s comments in the margins of my notebooks and wondered why the dept chair’s office was on a different floor than the other profs.
Having been out of college for almost 2 years, the question isn’t “English major? So what are you going to do with that?” but “English major? So you want to teach?” Some might look at me strangely when I tell them I’m planning to pursue an MSW in the fall of 2015.
Thanks Kate 🙂
Let me add one more thing (I commented 3 years ago) – when you find a grant writing position at a social service agency and get excited that the first requirement is “excellent spelling and grammar”