Obviously deciding to attend a university comes with a lot of challenges. For example, simply adjusting from the way high school classes operate to how university classes operate is always difficult for students. Take, for instance, Eduardo Mena—a current senior at Tennessee Tech—who showed promise as a high school student and was a high rank tennis player. In fact, he “loved attending high school,” and Mena made the honor roll for all four years at Camden High School, where she also took several AP courses; so, when he arrived at college she thought that “it would be a breeze.” Unfortunately, Stone started to recognize that college was “fundamentally different” than her high school. For example, she realized that students “actually needed to do the homework that college professors assign” and that they “don’t check up on you.” This is relevant because in high school, even though she considered herself very studious, she would often do homework only if she “felt like it or had the time” because she realized that the teachers would either “cover all of the material in class anyway” or “give students who didn’t finish time to complete it in class, especially if a lot of students didn’t.” Thus, according to Stone, “there were no real dangers to procrastination.”
At the time, Stone thought this was great and she “loved [her] teachers,” but now she realizes that they created some bad habits that are hard to break. This is especially relevant because she had so many more graded assignments in high school than in college, and almost every high school class—even her AP ones—had the possibility for extra credit if she wasn’t doing well. On the other hand, many of her college classes have between two and five major grades, which means if she “bombs one of two tests” she will fail the entire course because there is “rarely extra credit” at college. She also notices that this makes it easy for her to procrastinate a lot more because of the lack of daily quizzes or weekly homework: “Why read something that I’ll only be tested about in three weeks—or even eight weeks—down the road?” Fortunately, she is doing well in school and made the Dean’s list, but college is definitely harder for her than she expected.
Then, even when a student has adjusted to taking college classes, that student also needs to be sure that the major that he or she chooses is the right one. And, this choice isn’t always clear to students because many times we simply don’t understand what that choice means. Take, for example, the major I decided on—English. When I mention to most people (including my parents) that I’m majoring in English, the normal first reaction (after initial looks of scorn and disapproval) is, “What are you going to do with that degree? Be a teacher?” And then, quickly after, “I’ll be sure to watch my grammar when you’re around,” or “Please don’t correct my grammar,” somehow equating English with something as simple and boring as correcting someone’s grammar and punctuation.
However, becoming a teacher is only a one possibility for an English major. In fact, looking at figure one, surprisingly only about 17% of English graduates from Harvard actually work in education, which is the stereotypical job of English majors. The data—self-reported information that Harvard graduates supplied Harvard’s Office of Alumni Affairs and Development—shows that education is still the most common career, but only slightly since 16% of graduates work in law. Plus, upon further examination, the graph raises some important questions and insights.
For example, most of the careers will probably require additional education—which, of course, probably wouldn’t deter English majors since they generally enjoy school. Obviously, most of the fields (like publishing, k-12 teaching, arts, media, business, and nonprofit) don’t necessarily require a higher degree than a bachelor’s degree in either arts or sciences. However, some of the fields—law, health services, and finance—would obviously require more schooling, which may range from the extra one- or two-year MBA, the three-year law degree, or the eight-year medical degree. Also, it will require a minimum of six more years of graduate work to work in academia, which will be a total of ten years of school.
Yet, some of the fields are unexpected. For example, the “computer/IT/ engineering” categories may involve simply technical writing (writing informational, instruction, or support pages) or even more creative areas of video game or computerized work (creating stories, adding dialogue, and similar tasks). Nonetheless, it is surprising that 83% of English majors are not involved in education.
Yet even English majors choosing to work in the field of education can be lead to unexpected and interesting places. For example, whereas many people stereotype an English teacher as someone who diagrams sentences and checks student papers for grammar, they don’t necessarily equate using abstract psychological concepts to rationalize English’s importance—but in our current climate that is exactly what’s taking place. And, one of the most relevant places where psychology and English intersect occurs in a concept called Theory of Mind (or ToM). Basically, having a highly developed ToM means that an individual has a greater ability to recognize what other people are thinking by analyzing subtleties such as nonverbal cues, nuanced fluctuations in the tones or pitch of the voice, and markers of context. Of course, this provides an advantage to any individual; however, heightened ToM skills are also associated with higher levels of empathy, something that will definitely benefit society.
And, several important studies are being conducted to recognize how reading literature may help to develop a heightened sense of ToM. For example, Patricia Cohen—in her article “Next Big Thing in English: Knowing They Know That You Know,” which appeared in the New York Times—describes one study that is being led by Michael Holquist, professor emeritus of comparative literature at Yale. Holquist points out, “We begin by assuming that there is a difference between the kind of reading that people do when they read Marcel Proust or Henry James and a newspaper, that there is a value added cognitively when we read complex literary texts.” And to understand, and actually find real proof of the differences, Holquist explained how experimenters put the subjects into an MRI machine and gave them “a set of texts of graduated complexity depending on the difficulty of source monitoring” to “watch what happens in the brain.” And, once the studies are completed, the areas that fire are compared to those needed and used in “real” situations, like those that take place in the classroom, at the workplace, or in relationships. Of course, the importance of reading literature has always been recognized, but the only proof was that a student’s “critical thinking” skills were increased—which is not exactly a selling point to the general public. However, if we can actually isolate brain regions that are developed from English activities (and, by extension activities from other classes) this will provide a more concrete understanding of why the liberal arts are so valuable to society.
In conclusion, even when finally deciding on a major and choosing a specialization within it, a student still needs to learn all of the choices that still remain! a
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