First, it is my experience, just from holding counsel with a great number of women on a daily basis, that the ladies do not typically "go for" the English majors - at least the type of ladies that are portrayed in this comic. These "groupies" are representative of women who come to college intent on receiving an M.R.S. degree, that is, they are focused on landing a husband with no real interest in actually getting an education. Getting an M.R.S. degree is something that many women, myself included, often joke about. My friends have often make jokes about lurking around the pre-med club or pre-law club meetings in order to find a man, but you don't often hear women talk about lurking around the English department. If a woman is in college to find a husband (I know they exist, though I've never encountered one) she is likely looking for a rich husband and is more apt to seek out the pre-med or pre-law type, those that typically do end up making a fair salary (once they pay off student loans!) This is not to say, obviously, that there are not women vying for English majors, just not maybe as blindly and indiscriminately as I have witnessed some women go after doctors.
"But what will you do with a degree in English?" I imagine English majors hear this all the time and are probably sick of it. There are, incidentally, a great deal of things one can do with a degree in English or any humanities subject, really. However, with humanities majors in general, I think it is a good idea to go into that degree field with some sort of plan for after college - to teach, to write, or what have you - or else you may end up working in an area that has nothing to do with your degree, which I imagine would be rather heart-breaking. There are some places of business that only require applicants to have a degree and it doesn't matter in what. It is highly unlikely that an English major is going to feel validated at one of these jobs because it will be highly unlikely that they will get to apply anything that they have learned in their four years of college. And then there are the jobs that do require a specific degree. There are, of course, jobs that require English degrees, but they are more difficult to come by than, say, jobs looking for business majors, and are, therefore, highly competitive. So it is not impossible by any means to find a job as an English major, but it is difficult, particularly if you desire to work in your field.
While we would all love to believe that one day our knowledge set is going to come in handy at just the right moment - some important official will need a poem analyzed, one of the great American writers will wish to discuss literature with a worthy, well-read contemporary, or for me, I will be on a game show in which I have to identify the proteins used in DNA replication - the fact is, the extensive knowledge we have gained in many different areas will go largely unappreciated. If you are an English major with an office job, it is not likely that your knowledge of Shakespearean poetry will be used in your everyday life. Not to shatter anyone's dreams, but the president is not going to call asking you to analyze a play. Nothing you learn is useless, for sure, but some of the knowledge we gain just isn't going to be used practically on a daily daily and this is especially true, for humanities majors who work outside of their field.
This cartoon is funny but it is also quite frightening, frankly, English major or not. As a Biology major, I often worry about what I will do if the whole medicine thing doesn't pan out. In a way, this comic illuminates what is the very real fear of students everywhere - the idea of all of our efforts being for naught and the very opposite of this comic becoming our reality. Basically, I'm laughing to hide my fear.
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Image information:
Perks of Being an English Major (image source: Blogspot Cartoon); Leonardo DiCaprio putting on a brave face at the Oscars (image source:Pinterest)
Being an English Major, I of course had to chip in my two cents here XP
ReplyDeleteBeing frank, you’re spot on here. I love that comic, it makes me laugh. And part of the reason that women aren’t lining up to marry English majors is because there are almost no men in my degree. It’s super sad, but you can sit in an english class and have only one man, and if he isn’t actually an education major all the girls pounce.
The only time I’ve had a positive comment about my major is when someone asked if I was going to go on to law school (lots of humanities majors do that). But honestly, I can do just about anything with this degree. Yes, people are looking for more business majors at the moment, but they’re also learning that most business majors don’t know how to write very well. After all, after freshman comp how many other majors legitimately write on a regular basis? That’s all I do - papers might be analysing themes in Macbeth, but it’s still writing. More and more employers are realizing this so my job market is actually a lot wider than most other people I know.
Even still, I feel ya. Most college jokes have the butt of “What do you do with a B.A. in English?” but more and more that’s becoming the reality for everyone, regardless of major.