When he asked my major, I answered English. "Oh, you're an English major," the All-Knowing Graduate Student said in a tone of pleasant condescension. "You know, people always put down humanities majors, and I really don't understand why. I mean, you'll always make good conversation at a dinner party. No one ever likes to discuss the sciences."
In other words, I'm paying $36,000 per year to be a good conversationalist - that is, in the exalted opinion of my scientific superiors. But before I succumb to their opinion, I intend to fight back with words. And for the benefit of the scientific population at Johns Hopkins, I'll make my thesis clear and distinct: A major in English is equal to that of any other discipline, though valuable in different aspects (that is, besides a conversation piece).
For English majors, there is one clear advantage: COMMUNICATION. The study of English rigorously perfects the communication skills essential to the world of today. Nearly every career demands strong communication skills, including journalism, law, science and teaching. Every business must have at least one person polished in communications, since advertisements, press releases and articles are necessary to make any event a success. And now, with the Internet, there are numerous positions open for editing on-line Web sites and newsletters. This truth also proves true in politics, for behind every politician's speech, there is a committee of talented writers.
Moreover, a major in English teaches one about human nature, valuable in everyday life as well as in the professional realm. Isn't it more important to understand oneself and others as thinking beings before we proceed to the mechanical aspects? Each English course allows students to become different people for several hours, to read the thoughts, emotions and beliefs of another being similar to themselves, except with the gift of expression. Every author has a different view of the world and this allows students to recognize the breadth of human nature and to explore various opinions until they arrive at their own. If each author writes so beautifully, if each author passionately believes in his message, surely every author possesses some amount of validity in his views. And therefore, English students learn open-mindedness, perhaps the most important and pristine characteristic a person can have.
And with an open mind follows a broad appreciation of different cultures and periods of history. An English student is constantly transferred from modern Baltimore to Victorian England, early America or even pre-Revolutionary China in The Good Earth. There's no limit to exploration and thus students acquire a significant knowledge of the world they live in and the beauty of diversity.
Speaking of beauty, one element in particular makes English equal to the sciences: The beauty and intricacy of language, of words styled to recreate an emotion or appearance. Science may fascinate many individuals; it may have the key to understanding our existence and improving our livelihood, but language and art (both the study of English students) humanizes our lives. Humans are separate from animals because they can think, feel, hope and love. They do not want only existence, but yearn for more, for a meaning. Language provides this and acts as an equalizer to science.
I am an English major because I love the use of language to evoke an emotion. I love to find hidden, underlying meaning within a single line of poetry, to analyze its simplicity and paradoxically find so much depth. Whitman, Dickinson, the Brownings, Byron - all exert such a mesmeric enchantment over my senses that I could study them for life. And prose is a poem without the organization, the words like a soft, caressing wind or a warming ray of sunlight. This is why English is equal; this is why I and other English majors are not inferior. English is music without the instrument; it's visual art without the canvas; it's human nature captured on a sheet of paper, preserved for generations. Disrespect for the study of English is disrespect for the study of human nature and its inherent beauty.
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