Because Holly keeps making sly jokes at the expense of English majors, I decided that, as an English major, I should write a little somethin’ somethin’ in rebuttal.
Basically: we English majors have a bad rep. Head to a liberal arts school anywhere (where, let’s face it, half the student body is mostly engaged in intellectual or literal masturbation anyway) and the English Major jokes fly thick and fast. And yeah, lots of people major in English and go on to work in accounting or as skydiving instructors or end up in the dreaded “research analyst” (read: google shit all day) sector. But some people don’t! Some people genuinely like literature! Some people have had grammar drummed into their heads by parental figures since birth and can’t help but correct you when you split infinitives, alright? You’re torturing us with your misplaced commas and misused vocabulary! A girl can only take so much!
Phew. Sorry, I got a little carried away there. But for serious, Wesleyan has a notoriously good English department, and the English major isn’t just for people who Don’t Know What to Do With Their Lives. That’s Psych. (Kidding! Those in glass houses and all that…) Wesleyan plays host to a very prestigious Writing Conference in the summer (look it up) and has produced a number of talented authors, editors, and columnists, including:
-The editors of House and Garden and Runner’s World, Life Magazine, and Vanity Fair
-A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Los Angeles Times
-An award-winning slam poet
-Well-know and/or best-selling authors Robin Cook (Chromosome 6 plus more), Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm, etc), Carolyn Parkhurst (The Dogs of Babel), Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Identity), Sarah Shandler (Ophelia Speaks), and Daniel Handler (A Series of Unfortunate Events series)
-A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist
-Ted Fiske of Fiske Guide to Colleges (What? You say that’s the book that helped you decide where to go to college? Me too!)
-Approximately 92348923498 successful screenwriters for various Hollywood media
In conclusion: don’t knock it ’til you try it. We will RUN YOU DOWN with our grammar skillz. That’s right, with a “z” and everything. We’re not afraid to break our own rules to earn ourselves some respect.