I gained my English degree in July and have heard for the last three years – and probably will for the rest of my life – these 5 questions far too many times. I was faced with a prejudice against perceived ‘easy’ degrees like English or History for the majority of my time at university and I hated it. With very few contact hours it was common to treat English as an easy degree despite the hours spent on independent learning and reading and it was irritating to say the least.
I thought I would write this more BuzzFeed-y style post to tell everyone reading this that if you have asked me one of these questions, part of me will always hate you a little bit.
1. So you want to be a teacher?
This was probably the most common bee in my bonnet. I guarantee every English student will have been asked this at least once during their studies. People need to understand that a degree in itself provides students with a wide range of transferable skills. More importantly a degree in English gives great experience in areas like editing, analysing and a fantastic level of written communication. That is not to say that being a teacher is an undesirable career, its just not what every single English student is aspiring towards.
2. You’re from England, isn’t that cheating?
Another irritating approach to an English degree is the idea that I was born in England and therefore have an unfair advantage in the subject. No. Even studying English Language at A Level had nothing to do with being English and I would bet that a lot of native English speakers would struggle to define an abstract noun or a modal auxiliary verb. Studying literature requires an understanding of psychology, sociology, history, politics and a huge variety of other topics.
3. You have barely any contact hours, your degree must be so easy!
Again, no. For me, having fewer contact hours made my life much harder. I would have done anything for more seminars or more time with lecturers. Yes, I had more time to nap and be hungover but that was not really what £9,000 a year was for. In my final semester while writing my dissertation I had only 3 timetabled contact hours a week and can count the meetings with my dissertation tutor on one hand.
4. Why are you doing a degree in learning to read?
I have heard this ‘jokey’ question more times than I care to remember. As I mentioned previously, the ignorant assumption that an English degree merely consists of reading words on a page could not be further from the truth. This was a similar attitude I faced when I studied modules on film. I think it is common to forget that literature and film are expressions of culture, attitudes and beliefs and they portray themes in certain ways deliberately. It is very easy to watch a film or read a book and see only the surface level of meaning, however every image and word are sculpted for a specific reason by the director or author.
5. Have you read this book?
My last choice is probably the least irritating but is still one to be addressed. An English degree does not provide students with an A-Z of novel titles and authors. Although we read a vast amount of texts, please do not be disappointed when I can’t recite every single Shakespeare play or recall which text a quote is from.
I must say that the majority of people that have voiced the above questions did not do so to annoy or insult me. Nevertheless these questions are irritating and English students and graduates reading this will understand. It needs to be understood that different degrees are not necessarily worth more or less than others and saying ‘yeah but you only do English’ is a phrase that should be banned.
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