Academic Playground Bullies

Rounding the curve on the college track -- it's first semester, senior year, for me.  I don't know how normal this is, but I've been looking for internships, for jobs, through my-personality-equals-this-career tests since freshman  year. My eyes hurt.

Why the hang-ten, fire throwing, sword swallowing web surfing? The answer is one most of you already know: English major. 

Six months from now I'll switch my tassel to the other side, shake hands with important administrators, and hold a degree in my hand, not a set career path.  I'm certain I'm not alone in this scenario:

Stranger: What's your major?

Me, waiting for the Face: English, I'm an English major.

Stranger, making the Face coupled with an octave increase in voice pitch: OH, Cool.

If I had a dollar for every time that conversation was directly followed by an assumption that I plan to be a teacher, then I could probably afford to be a teacher, with full pockets.

For a while there, I indulged my two passions, writing/literature and art, as a double major. This answer warranted Faces ever more distorted.

The Crown Mary of honest introductions:

Stranger: So what are you studying?

Me: English and Art.

Stranger: *snort and laugh* Wow, so how do your parents feel about you picking two majors basically called, "how not to get a job after graduation?"

Well English majors, whether or not you're already secure in this fact, as years of the academic pity parties may have trained you, we are standing in some very fancy, gold-spurred, celebrity-quality boots. I gathered a list of known famous English majors that is sure to give you plenty of ammunition the next time you bump into the Face makers out there.

A. Bartlett Giamatti (President, Yale University)

Alan Alda

Arther Miller

Barbara Walters

Bob Woodward (journalist, Watergate)

Carol Browner (EPA Director)

Chevy Chase

Chris Isaak

Chrisopher Reeve

Clarence Thomas (Supreme Court Justice)

Conan O'Brien

Dave Barry

Diane Sawyer

Don Henley

Edward Burns

Emma Thompson

Grant Tinker

Harold Varmus (Nobel Laureate in Medicine)

Harrison Ford

Heather Graham

Herb Scannell (President, Nickolodeon, MTV networks)

James Cameron

Joan Cusack

Jodie Foster

Joe Paterno (football coach, Penn State)

Johnny Carson

Joy Behar

Julia Stiles

Kathryn Fuller

Laura Bush

Linda Bloodworth (TV writer/producer)

Mario Cuomo (Governor of NY)

Martin Scorcese 

Matt Damon

Michael Eisner (Disney CEO)

Paul Newman

Paul Simon

Reese Witherspoon

Renee Zellweger

Sally Ride (astronaut)

Stephen Spielberg

Steven King

Sting

Tom Clancy

Toni Morrison

Vin Diesel

Looking at this list feels like a hug from Vin Diesel, but it also gives me a few ideas. Who says we can't direct movies, write graphic novels or exit the atmosphere.

Those all nighters you pulled to finish your 10th novel of the week and the all nighter a few days later to write the paper on it have given you more than purple eye bags and a caffeine addiction. Six months from now, I'm going to be holding several degrees in my hands, one for every potential direction in which my skill set can point me.