my journey to majoring in english
During my first year of college, I did the typical thing and joined waaay too many clubs. After about a semester, I honed in on what I wanted to dedicated my time to and settled with three extracurriculars. Since then, I’ve picked up a few more clubs again…
My current club load includes 11 involvements
I’m in the President’s Leadership and Honors Programs. I’m a member of the English Major with Distinction Program. I’m a member of the Psi Chi International Psychology Honors Society. I’m President of my university’s chapter for the Sigma Tau Delta English International Honors Society. I’m the Managing Editor for Currents, the Creative Writing Literary Magazine. I’m the Secretary on the Executive Board for the Student Honor Council. I’m the Site Team Leader for a local cat shelter and I volunteer there as well as another cat shelter. I’m also a member of my uni’s Dead Poets Society and campus-wide Book Club. Oh, and I work in a call center on campus making non-partisan political poll calls.
A common theme? I’m in a lot of English related extracurriculars. Wanna know what’s even better? Next year I’ll be working in my uni’s writing center, too. I have truly enveloped myself in English.
What’s funny to me is how invested I’ve become in the English portion of academic career as opposed to other major, psychology. I did participate in a study abroad last May for a psychology course and I completed an independent study for psychology last semester, but for the most part, I dedicate more time to English. In middle and high school I was not a fan of my English classes. The curriculum was difficult, I only clicked with a handful of my English teachers, and I hated writing essays. So what changed? Why can you write a five-page essay in just a few hours, no sweat now? Why do you dedicate so much of your time to English if you hated it so much in your younger years?
I can’t give a definitive answer, but I have a few ideas. I didn’t start to like academic writing until my junior year of high school in my AP US History class. The textbook and the way the teacher lectured just clicked with me and I really digested the content. When it came time to practice writing long-form responses for the AP exam, I had some trouble with the first couple, but then after that, something just clicked and I was a writing machine. I had a reputation in that class as being the student who just knew all the answers. We had a few practice essays in class, and I always scored high marks. A few days before the AP exam, I visited the class to ask the teacher if he would write a college application letter for me, and when I stopped by, a fellow classmate was there already talking to him. We briefly chatted about the upcoming exam and I mentioned that I was nervous, and my peer immediately said “You’re gonna get a five” (a five being the best possible score on the exam. Come exam day and I crushed it.
When senior year started, I visited the teacher to say hi, and he was talking to another one of my classmates from the previous school year. She asked how I did and I sheepishly replied that I got a five. My teacher was incredibly proud of me, and my peer was happy for me. It was a wonderful feeling.
My AP classes junior and senior year really whipped me into shape and made me a way better writer. While I’ve yet to have to write three essays in less than two hours and fifteen minutes in any of my college classes, the practice AP exams I did in eleventh grade molded me into a quick thinker, able to come up with theses and evidence in a flash.
I used to despise English as a subject and essay writing. Now I’d rather write a ten-page essay over taking an exam any day of the week. I’ve always loved writing, it was just the reading comprehension aspect of English classes and the formulaic essays that we wrote in middle and high school that made me loathe the subject. I started university as a psychology major, and decided about halfway through my first semester that I was going to 1) be a double major in writing and psychology and 2) apply to my uni’s honors program to make that happen. For context — being in the honors program means you are exempt from having to take entry-level writing courses which were prerequisites for the English classes I need to take for the major.
As a first semester freshman, I looked at the course catalog for English, and because I wanted to take four specific English classes (which I have now already taken or am currently taking), I decided to pursue the one subject I hated most. And look at me now! The closest relationships I have with professors are the ones in the English department. I stop by the English office on a weekly basis. And I’m pursuing an MFA in creative writing after undergrad. Can I get more envelopes in English than that?
I’m so glad that I decided to be a double major. I’ve met some great friends through English classes, cultivated great relationships with professors, and grown not only as a writer and a reader but as a person in my university-level English classes. Babie-Shan, I know your equaling in your boots right now that you’re an English major, but it’s the best decision you’ve ever made.
