On Majors and Honors and stuff

It's getting to the point where I have to officially declare my major.  (By 'getting to the point,' I mean that I'm going into the registrar's office tomorrow to declare my major and sign up for my J-term travel course).  This is a slightly terrifying concept; although part of me has always known that an English major was in the cards, there's still the part of me that is nervous about whether I'm making the right choice and whether I'm going to be offered ALL THE WRITING JOBS EVER or whether I'm going to be starving in Seattle, where the cost of living is apparently way lower than anywhere on the East Coast.  Though the journalism minor is going to help decrease the chances of the latter scenario, the English major and second minor in Classics will probably negate any sort of benefit I might obtain from that.

I'm also starting to wonder whether I want to just major in English, or whether I want to possibly double major.  The likelihood of this turning out well is slim, but there is the possibility that English could be joined by Greek or Classics.  The trouble is, if I'm going to study abroad at all, I want to be able to take a lot of major-relevant classes, and I don't know how many foreign universities will offer credits that I can transfer for Classics.  Simply put, English is an easier major to travel with.

The thing that brought up that question was an invitation to join an honors society for a department that is not in my major.  I know that this only means that I'm doing well in the specified area, but this is making me wonder about my life choices and what I really want to do with my college years.  Do I really want to go into writing at all?  Do I want to spend my days reading and writing, or do I want to spend my time translating really old tablets and looking at tiny fragments of some pot from two thousand years ago?

Does anyone out there ever have this problem?

On Geekery and College Majors

Right, I know now why I'm an English major. Well, I've always had an inkling that I might be an English major, but various reasons came to mind in the past - I like writing, I like reading, I like words. But my former choir director said something the other day that kind of made me think about it. He told me that one thing he liked about me is that I'm fascinated with a lot of things. (I was being a bit of a nerd and telling him about my honors essay on Pueblo mythology and death practices in Blood Meridian, and how I couldn't put in a cool detail about a supernova in 1054 AD, recorded only by Chinese scholars and Anasazi artists).

Anyway, that got me thinking about my major. I haven't officially declared yet, but I'm going to declare in English for the reason my choir teacher described. I'm interested in ALL THE THINGS, and lit courses study a lot of things. This semester was Cormac McCarthy, last semester was early Brit Lit (think Beowulf), next semester is King Arthur. I'm typing this on my new iPhone in Barnes and Noble; in front of me is a book on Pope Celestine V, who reigned in the 13th century for a mere 15 weeks before quitting. He was the only Pope to quit for almost 800 years, until the resignation that opened the way for Pope Francis.

Everything is really interesting for me - Popes AND prehistoric cultures AND GSM rights AND DnD AND writing scifi AND knitting geeky items and socks for cats - so it's sort of difficult to pick just one major. I think there are two important things about college: one is to learn how to make your way in the world; the other is to learn all the cool stuff you can.