After spending your entire childhood with your nose in a book and then rocking the Critical Reading and Writing sections of the SAT, it seemed inevitable that pursing a degree in English was your fate in college. You already know that your liberal arts major is a worthy pursuit, but what is it that distinguishes you from those non-English major collegiettes? Here are a few signs that you’re an English major.
1. After graduating from high school, you were thrilled to never have to see this again:
2. Or this:
3. Or (the horror!) this:
4. Once you decided on your English major, you fantasized about doing a lot of this:
5. Although you didn’t expect you’d spend so much time lugging around one of these (Norton Anthology, why so heavy?).
6. Though you’ve often experienced that dreaded writer’s block…
…you can still write a 10-page paper in your sleep,
whereas your non-English major friends are like this every time they receive a written assignment:
7. Your non-English major friends also always ask you to proofread their papers,
and you always have to decide after you read them just how honest you’re going to be (especially if their papers are really terrible).
8. It physically pains you when people think “literature” is this:
or this:
or (ugh) this:
9. You’re always correcting people on their grammar.
10. And the extensive vocabulary you utilize in everyday conversation tends to irk people.
11. Everyone assumes that this is what your book collection looks like:
And that these are the only sorts of novels you read:
12. But really, you don’t discriminate when it comes to books. Although you do read a lot.
13. But you’ve never quite gotten used to reading with one of these:
14. When people find out about your major, the first question you always get is: “Oh, so you want to be a teacher?”
15. And while, yes, you could become a teacher, you could also become a journalist, or an editorial writer, or a publisher, or an author… or anything, really.
16. Your friends in the business school may think that you’ll end up like this after graduation:
Or this:
17. But you’ll always know that you’ve chosen the right path for yourself.
Even if you never do write that next Great American Novel.