Majoring in English—why so much disrespect?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I know women’s studies, studio art, and political science majors from my LAC, who went to medical school.

3% of med school students were/are humanities majors

It’s safe to say nobody knows many English majors who became doctors because it’s statistically impossible.

But you may know some.

Statistically if you know 33 doctors one of them majored in humanities. To know two you need to know 67 doctors. To know “a few” or you need to know hundreds of doctors.

That’s all humanities…not just English (poli sci most popular humanities major BTW). We are talking specifically English majors which is the title of the thread.

You probably have to know 150-200 doctors to know one that was an English major.

Gracious, I was an English major and even I understand that's not how probability works. You do not "have to know 150-200 doctors" to know one who was an English major. You can know just one doctor - the one in 150 who was an English major.

And that’s why people look down on English majors. If you look at the prior post it started with the word “statistically”, meaning on average. You’re confusing a possible outcome with the probability that said outcome is realized. Where’s that sharp critical thinking that English majors supposedly develop while analyzing Shakespeare? Businesses will not pay you money for these trite arguments, you need to be productive.

I'm not the PP but PP was not wrong. Perhaps PP was playing on the words as an English major. While the probability of an event happening before it occurs might be less than 100%, once the event has happened, it is certain, and its probability becomes 1 (or 100%).

[Anonymous]

dony898 wrote:Everyone dunks on English majors until they need help writing a single coherent sentence on LinkedIn.

I had to write a job description recently and used AI for the first to time to do it. It was pretty dam* good. I just had to tweak it a bit. I was a bit shocked.

I saw a video of a fake podcast created by Google Gemini for a technical manual. It was shockingly amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many from the LMC view education as vocational training and don’t understand the value of a liberal arts education.

Most people don't come from money. They need a job after college. Rich people can major in things like Art History and not worry about getting a job.

[Anonymous]

We have a history major who is pairing it with a science minor that's in hot demand. Every parent is pushing their kid into STEM and it's leading to a glut of applicants. Being able to show that you are well-rounded (able to write with good reading comprehension and a sense of history) combined with some science is a good combination. We have a glut of STEM graduates on the hiring market that aren't even getting interviews now because every kid is a STEM major. Too many bodies chasing too few jobs. English is a fine major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know women’s studies, studio art, and political science majors from my LAC, who went to medical school.

3% of med school students were/are humanities majors

It’s safe to say nobody knows many English majors who became doctors because it’s statistically impossible.

But you may know some.

Statistically if you know 33 doctors one of them majored in humanities. To know two you need to know 67 doctors. To know “a few” or you need to know hundreds of doctors.

That assumes perfectly even distribution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

dony898 wrote:Everyone dunks on English majors until they need help writing a single coherent sentence on LinkedIn.

I had to write a job description recently and used AI for the first to time to do it. It was pretty dam* good. I just had to tweak it a bit. I was a bit shocked.

I saw a video of a fake podcast created by Google Gemini for a technical manual. It was shockingly amazing.

I think many, if not most, people find it to be good because they can't write to save their arse so anything that's comprehensible is going to be good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The wealthiest person I know (a multi-millionaire) majored in English, went on later to get an MBA, and successfully started two companies. He encouraged his own children to get a solid liberal arts education before picking a career.

Two of the wealthiest people (Gates and Zuckerberg) on the planet didn’t even graduate college at all.

You can’t start making arguments for a field of study based on ultimate financial success because it always ends with the wealthiest people who were nearly all STEM majors or college dropout STEM majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know women’s studies, studio art, and political science majors from my LAC, who went to medical school.

3% of med school students were/are humanities majors

It’s safe to say nobody knows many English majors who became doctors because it’s statistically impossible.

But you may know some.

Statistically if you know 33 doctors one of them majored in humanities. To know two you need to know 67 doctors. To know “a few” or you need to know hundreds of doctors.

That assumes perfectly even distribution.

It also assumes you know what their college major was

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An example of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Understanding it is only the beginning.

"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour."

but, why do people need to understand this? I read Shakespeare, Flaubert, etc.. but I don't see the point in needing to understand very old English. My DH is English. He doesn't even like reading those types of books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many from the LMC view education as vocational training and don’t understand the value of a liberal arts education.

Correction: many from the UMC view education as a status signal and don't understand the value of a professional education.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Part of it is that English or other humanities majors have higher acceptance rates and lower selectivity, often used or proposed by DCuM as a back door to enter elite colleges.

Elite colleges might have separate schools of engineering with lower acceptance rates, but otherwise don't generally admit into certain majors. And certainly don't release acceptance data by major.

Not just engineering. There are many many oversubscribed majors, finance, premed.

Where they have separate engineering school, their CAS also offer Computer Science major (Cornell, Columbia). Penn is free to take CS courses, and / or double major.

DCUM counselors frequently shouted "it's the major!". But yes, one can sneak in as English major then switch to Econ. That leads to disrespect.

Premed isn't a major.

Name a top 20 school, other than Cal and UCLA, that has a separate admissions process/data for English vs biology or economics.

So, are you saying DCUM counselors were wrong?

Every time when Asian are discriminated against in the admission process, DCUM counselors claim that it's the major, it's the major!
So is it, or is it not?

Yes, I am most definitely saying that dcum "common wisdom" is wrong about a lot of things. Schools want to build classes with students interested in a variety of things, so aren't going to accept all math competition winners and may look twice at someone who won a prestigious poetry award. A math competition winner saying they are interested in English doesn't change anything.

A prestigious poetry award? Are you nuts? That certainly gets admitted.

Most applicants are well rounded students with garden variety ECs that are not as pointy as a prestigious poetry award. Obviously they aren't getting in the oversubscribed majors. English, history, women studies, obviously are ways to go, particularly for boys. I think that's what DCUM counselors were suggesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chaucer, that's another one I never read. If only my parents knew, they were already not thrilled with the English degree but I didn't even read half the books. I did watch all the movies though. Somehow I got a great job working for the government.

Lazy English major?

I considered myself to be highly efficient, I graduated with virtually no effort put forth.

Great professors at GMU back then. I just started wondering if any of them might stumble upon this thread. CF was the best. I can't remember the other names. The one who taught Southern Gothic lit was great, I recommend A Feast of Snakes, that nice old lady had us read that filthy book. The guy who did Sci Fi was great too, A Gate to Women's Country was my favorite. Another shout out to the one who had us read One Hundred Years of Solitude, she promised that we'd all read it again one day, I tried to watch the Netflix show but it was terrible. So there, I read at least three books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Understanding it is only the beginning.

"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour."

but, why do people need to understand this? I read Shakespeare, Flaubert, etc.. but I don't see the point in needing to understand very old English. My DH is English. He doesn't even like reading those types of books

Which then begs the question, why do I need to study so many subjects that I will never use in my career? It's not necessarily the specific subject matter that's important, its the the thought processes and skills that we develop that's important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chaucer, that's another one I never read. If only my parents knew, they were already not thrilled with the English degree but I didn't even read half the books. I did watch all the movies though. Somehow I got a great job working for the government.

Lazy English major?

I considered myself to be highly efficient, I graduated with virtually no effort put forth.

Great professors at GMU back then. I just started wondering if any of them might stumble upon this thread. CF was the best. I can't remember the other names. The one who taught Southern Gothic lit was great, I recommend A Feast of Snakes, that nice old lady had us read that filthy book. The guy who did Sci Fi was great too, A Gate to Women's Country was my favorite. Another shout out to the one who had us read One Hundred Years of Solitude, she promised that we'd all read it again one day, I tried to watch the Netflix show but it was terrible. So there, I read at least three books.

Sounds like the GMU program wasn't very rigorous back in your day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a history major who is pairing it with a science minor that's in hot demand. Every parent is pushing their kid into STEM and it's leading to a glut of applicants. Being able to show that you are well-rounded (able to write with good reading comprehension and a sense of history) combined with some science is a good combination. We have a glut of STEM graduates on the hiring market that aren't even getting interviews now because every kid is a STEM major. Too many bodies chasing too few jobs. English is a fine major.

Is your kid expecting to work in the “hot” science minor field?