Confessions of an English Major - Part One: To Eat or Not to Eat...

Last night I sang belated Happy Birthday to Shakespeare.            

Seriously.

There was even a cake that said “To Eat or Not To Eat.”

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Every field of study has its peculiarities – engineers are known for their practicality and fondness for calculations; scientists are known for their fascination with analysis and figuring out how things work; English majors are known for – wait – what are English majors known for?

I have now been an English major for about 5 years – 3 years as an undergraduate and now going into my second year of graduate school.  As an undergraduate, my perception of English professors was shallow at best.  I saw them as well-read people who did nothing other than read and teach about what they read.  My classmates at that time were a widely varied bunch – some were English majors because it seemed like an easy major, some because they loved to read, some because they loved to write, and some seemed to have no idea why or how they even came to be English majors in the first place.   I came into the English major after a chain of other (mostly science-based) majors because I wanted to be a writer.  It wasn’t until my last 2 years of my undergraduate program, when I began taking fiction workshops, that I first felt a sense of community with my fellow English majors.

Now, in grad school, that sense of community has grown exponentially.  The professors are welcoming and supportive of my individual interests and goals; the other graduate teaching assistants share ideas and experiences; we communicate via e-mail and volunteer to work together on extra projects and meet to talk about our course readings and to study for our tests; we empathize with one another over how busy we are and exactly how difficult it is to grade 3 batches of essays after writing a 15-page term paper.   Gradually, I have come to realize the wonderful and unique sense of fellowship that comes from being among people who share the same academic interests and who have similar career goals, no matter how varied the rest of our lives may be.

And so last night I spent 5 hours at a study session/party for my Shakespeare class; we talked, we discussed the final exam – and yes, we sang belated Happy Birthday to Shakespeare, with a cake and everything.

I am an English geek, and I am not ashamed.

In fact, I am thinking of starting an English major rock band, complete with obscure lyrics that reference Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett.  We will change the stereotype of English professors as bookish, solitary scholars; we will glory in our literary geekdom and declare it to the world!

Then again, maybe we’ll just sit in our offices and grade student essays…

Meanwhile, in the spirit of embracing stereotypes in amusing new ways, check out “An Engineer’s Guide to Cats.” 

 Stay tuned for next week’s “Confessions of an English Major – Part Two: You Know You’re an English Major When…” 

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