The declining number of English majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people have realized how hard it is to get a job with that degree.

College isn’t job training. That’s what vocational school is for.

Eh, tell that to the people who major in accounting and teaching and graduate with job offers.

Anyone can leave with a job offer? Those degrees aren't even the best ones to get you a good job offer?

[Anonymous]

More diverse population intended in more languages/cultures than just English/Anglo. Specialization in to new majors (literature inside non-Anglo cultural studies)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academia has made literature an incredibly unappealing thing to study. Take a look at the specialities of your average English Department these days. It's not something you want to spend four years immersed in. No one has done more to destroy language and literature than contemporary academia. It is incredibly stifling, boring, pedantic, hyper-political, and all around not fun. I congratulate every bright liberal arts student who has chosen to not major in English. Well done.

Yes. My MIL is an English professor at an Ivy and she would likely agree with everything you wrote. She hates how hyper-political it has become.

Can you elaborate? Most English departments are still stuck in discussion on Yeats, Joyce, and Shakespeare. I hardly see any curriculum that isn't just the typical cannon with a few classes to appease students (British Writers anyone!)

It sounds like you agree with the PP that English departments are polarized, stifling and “all around not fun.” It’s an incredibly unpleasant place to spend time.

And that is the problem. To attract majors a department has to be either practical or fun. A few lucky departments might be both. English is neither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people have realized how hard it is to get a job with that degree.

College isn’t job training. That’s what vocational school is for.

WTF are you on drug?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academia has made literature an incredibly unappealing thing to study. Take a look at the specialities of your average English Department these days. It's not something you want to spend four years immersed in. No one has done more to destroy language and literature than contemporary academia. It is incredibly stifling, boring, pedantic, hyper-political, and all around not fun. I congratulate every bright liberal arts student who has chosen to not major in English. Well done.

Yes. My MIL is an English professor at an Ivy and she would likely agree with everything you wrote. She hates how hyper-political it has become.

Can you elaborate? Most English departments are still stuck in discussion on Yeats, Joyce, and Shakespeare. I hardly see any curriculum that isn't just the typical cannon with a few classes to appease students (British Writers anyone!)

It sounds like you agree with the PP that English departments are polarized, stifling and “all around not fun.” It’s an incredibly unpleasant place to spend time.

And that is the problem. To attract majors a department has to be either practical or fun. A few lucky departments might be both. English is neither.

Well the issue is...you can't really learn about literary theory if you've never actually read the most important cornerstones of the subject. If you can't do anything but complain about the old boring, white male authors, you might just not like Literature that much. I'm more trying to combat the people call modern English "wokies," because it really isn't something you get to scrape until graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people have realized how hard it is to get a job with that degree.

College isn’t job training. That’s what vocational school is for.

That's old thinking. You're still stuck in the time period when Biff could just get any old college degree and find a job easily out of college because they have a degree.

Today is very different.

Colleges are also getting rid of the English majors. It's supply and demand.

Keep up with the times, or get left behind.

This does not support data though. Many other liberal arts and social sciences are very popular majors. Most STEM subjects have pretty flat declaration rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people have realized how hard it is to get a job with that degree.

College isn’t job training. That’s what vocational school is for.

That's old thinking. You're still stuck in the time period when Biff could just get any old college degree and find a job easily out of college because they have a degree.

Today is very different.

Colleges are also getting rid of the English majors. It's supply and demand.

Keep up with the times, or get left behind.

This does not support data though. Many other liberal arts and social sciences are very popular majors. Most STEM subjects have pretty flat declaration rate.

Some other social sciences are at least plausibly useful. English is a worthless degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people have realized how hard it is to get a job with that degree.

College isn’t job training. That’s what vocational school is for.

Eh, tell that to the people who major in accounting and teaching and graduate with job offers.

Anyone can leave with a job offer? Those degrees aren't even the best ones to get you a good job offer?

but it's better than an English degree, for the most part.

-dp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to middle school and high school teachers. The Covid gap kids are basically illiterate. So the number of English majors will further decline, at least for the next 8 years until we get through this bubble of kids.

Demand for English major has been declining, even before covid hit.

The decline started about 20 years ago. Social media has destroyed people's attention spans and the ability to read serious arguments.

I think it's because as more and more people go to college, they want a marketable degree, and currently, an undergrad English degree isn't that marketable.

Most people need a decent paying job after they graduate. English majors with just an undergrad as a whole don't make much.

[Anonymous]

Harold Bloom called it 25 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csp7nlXLtRE

[Anonymous]

Because for $100k+ you need to be able to get a job other than an admin assistant with a BA in English.
My husband has an English degree. He is in the service/manual labor industry. He will be the first to tell you his college experience was great, but his degree is useless. Except when he corrects people for using the word "funner" which now we all know isn't a word.
None of our children will be getting an English, Poetry, or Arts degree from a 4 year university that we pay for. They are welcome to have flourishing passions for any extracurriculars but it's just bad financial sense to pursue those degrees anymore, and they don't have trust funds to support those types of choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harold Bloom called it 25 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csp7nlXLtRE

One of his first times. He was often wrong: harry potter is trash lit and won't be revered, Toni Morrison has poor books, "Maya Angelou can't write," "David Foster Wallace Can't write," etc. Proud of him.

[Anonymous]

He was half-right about Harry Potter.

It is trash lit, but it won't going into the dustbin of history anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

English is no longer the field you or your literary college buddy majored in. It's basically Woke Studies now. Goodbye Shakespeare, hello Ibram X. Kendi. Why pore over dead white guy drivel like Ulysses when you can read The Hate U Give for class like your middle school cousin is doing? This is what super woke left wing SJWs have done to once-great English departments across the country. And it's why serious students don't major in it anymore.

[Anonymous]

Kendi's "edgy" take on Shakespeare was just ridiculous.