Should I get an English degree?

[Anonymous No.11035662]

Is such a thing even relevant anymore? Is literature? The public say we memes now and I'm sure they mean it.

[Anonymous No.11035677]

>>11035662
Follow your heart! Why ask a board of bitter failures?

[Anonymous No.11035700]

Do you wanna learn about something you enjoy or do you want to make money. If your college is funded, reasonably so then learn what you want. If you're about to throw yourself into a swimming pool of debt, learn something that will enable you to pay it back easier.

[Anonymous No.11035705]

>>11035662
Absolutely. How else are you going to learn how to distinguish which books and authors are problematic?

[Anonymous No.11035713]

>>11035662
if you need factual reassurement try to think what you want to do with the degree - do you want to be a journalist, an editor, an assistant professor,a writer, or a couple of those things? Than look up the statistics for employment and salary and if that looks good to you - statistics have done their thing.

Literature is in popular decline, but so are most things, if you want to do something - do it, that's the only way (I think) of being any help to the situation we are in.
The other exit is getting a job in a high paying sector, hating your daily life, trying to make yourself happy with petty things, but ending up just a broken piece of notions that can't see what's good in a sunny day.

The public also meant to elect that one president and did a lot of stupid things worldwide, so you are better off without most of them. But I do understand that this is a hard break, more now, when our instagram accounts tell us to care more and more about nicknames and feed them pretty things, then when the public was more invisible and by extension (I think) more prone to intellectual seduction (as opposed to the symbolic seduction via blast rays of pictures of you wearing ray bans and pretty girls)

[Anonymous No.11035721]

Im an English major. Figured if I was gonna be at college I'd study something I enjoyed and felt somewhat passionate about. Also I think the major is very practical in a broad sense. It teaches critical thinking.

[Anonymous No.11035793]

>>11035662
Hahahhaaha no.
Maybe it's just me but I am a wagey loser.

[Anonymous No.11035819]

>>11035662
For most people humanities degrees aren't relevant, by which I mean most people won't go on to an academic career, or other career in which their subject is important. There just aren't that many jobs in the world related to literature.

But the idea that humanities therefore suck for employment is a meme. A lot of jobs don't ask for a specific major and just want you to have a degree- and for that, English Lit is no worse than anything else. If you're worried about employability, more important than your choice of subject is (a) the status of your university and (b) what other stuff you have on your CV/resume- work experience, volunteering activities, whatever.

[Anonymous No.11035844]

there are free lessons online, does a degree even help you get a job in ?English?

[Anonymous No.11035854]

>>11035662
FUCK WHY IS GETTING A GF SO DAMN HARD

[Anonymous No.11035878]

>>11035854
Right? How am I meant to "meet" people? Just approach strangers, worse still strange women, and open conversation? It's not my fault I'm an introvert shutin, there has to be a way for people without social exposure to meet women.

[Anonymous No.11035881]

>>11035844
wut

[Anonymous No.11035886]

>>11035878
Get a job, join a club, join a wacky religious group, volunteer for something, take classes in something etc etc etc

[Anonymous No.11035887]

>>11035721
>implying no other degrees teach critical thinking

[Anonymous No.11035893]

>>11035887
Anon doesn't imply that at all. Looks like you need some reading skills. Might I suggest English lit?

[Anonymous No.11035901]

>>11035886
But they'll think I'm a weirdo if I just strike a conversation with them. They'll know I'm hitting on them. Is that even socially acceptable these days?

[Anonymous No.11035916]

>>11035901
Sounds like you need to learn to talk to people in general. If you're able to talk to them like a normal person, they probably won't think you're hitting on them unless you're actually hitting on them.

Striking up a conversation with random strangers can be unusual (at least in the UK and, I assume, in parts of Murrica). Striking up a conversation with people with whom you're thrown together by work, study or other common activity, on the other hand, isn't weird at all- in fact, in that situation -not- talking is often weirder.

[Anonymous No.11036136]

>>11035854
Getting a Good job is hard. Gfs are easy

[Anonymous No.11036159]

FUCKING GOD DAMN IT DONT FUCKING DO IT.
you will have to write things that are so pointless u will fucking want to die fuck that shit theres better ways to prove your worth than a degree it makes me mad that people are falling for this garbage and suffering through college and university for NO FUCKING REASON.

[Anonymous No.11036179]

Are you getting an English degree because literature is your passion. Go for it then.

Are you getting an English degree just to say you went to college? Or to further a career potential? Then you’re a moron.

[Anonymous No.11036193]

>>11036179

Literature degrees are for people interested in becoming scholars of English. They're not a generalized vocational degree. They exist for people who are interested in writing rigorous, academic papers and teaching students for a living. English literature degrees aren't for creative writers, or passionate readers. If scholarship isn't you, then you shouldn't be taking English literature. Get a general humanities degree if you want to be intellectually rounded. You should be minoring in it or taking courses and reading for pleasure as a hobby if you aren't a scholar. And you ought to love scholarship, not just find it tolerable, because you will be competing with nerds who love scholarship and who are willing to compete by doing scholarship for years on end for next to nothing.

[Anonymous No.11036217]

>>11036179
>>11036193
Speaking as a adjunct prof with four degrees, these are accurate, for the most part. A BA in English is no more useful than any other undergrad degree (and less than some), but you have to decide if you have any career path in mind at all, and how you intend to feed yourself when you're 40.

[Anonymous No.11036453]

>>11035677
OP here. fpbp.

>>11035700
I've been wanting to break into a writing gig for /tg/ or vidya, be part of a writer's room, or write a (good) novel for half my life. I'm mid-30s. I've filled my head with lots of good non-fic, philosophy, genre and films. I can think, but I feel a good story is not happening without a degree. My real, non-fun career goals are police or seminary. Promotion becomes much more likely as po-po from having any kind of degree, and English is a good basic degree for continuing on with more specialized schooling. I'd like to eventually attend seminary and become a military chaplain when I'm older and English BA is a fine start.

>>11035793
Already did that, it sucked.

>>11035721
I already think critically.

>>11035819
Yeh, that's slightly what I'm worried about. Having college debt and a rubbish degree. Besides English I'd like to pursue an Electronics Engineering degree and be an electrician or wire up houses. No danger of starving there, it fits in with my old career (radio wave / signal / antenna analysis), and I can afford to attend writing seminars and workshops afterwards. This might even be achievable with trade school.

>>11035854
That's Audrey Hepburn, the beloved actress and humanitarian philanthropist. She's nobility so settle down and show respect, maybe her ghost will call a gf into existence for you.

>>11036179
>Are you getting an English degree because literature is your passion. Go for it then.
Yes.

>>11036193
I read comparative mythology, classics, histories of antiquity, and biblical exegesis for fun. I don't write papers about it, I just like reading about ancient fedoras and their permanently perturbed pelvises.

>>11036217
Thanks doc. I definitely have a few career paths in mind, I just wanted some assurance that a literature-related baccelaureate, specifically English, would not be a waste of time. I already have most everything I need in life: tools, truck, skills, resume, ex-gfs. As long as I can afford rice and beans and rent, I'm good.


Thank you all for your input.

[Anonymous No.11037194]

>>11035713
sorry I didn't give you a (You)!

>Literature is in popular decline, but so are most things
This to me is actually a positive I think. Kids today are mental deficients, even by my standards of being an 80s kid raised by Nintendo and PC games. Many of these young people obsessed with insta and twitters aren't going to be splitting the atom, they're born consumers. And, despite what youtube would have them believe, the pool of quality, original creators is shrinking.

The only reservation I have about an English degree is I already know a fair amount about it. Intertextuality. Chiastic structure. Ring composition. The importance of hamartia. Demythologization is played out, remythologization is where it's at. So on. And if I do an online school like ASU then I have to suffer through SJW topics for a grade.

[Anonymous No.11038957]

>>11035705
Ha!

[Anonymous No.11038987]

>>11035662
This
>You should be minoring in it or taking courses and reading for pleasure as a hobby if you aren't a scholar.
Short answer: no