I distinctly remember talking once to someone who was in college majoring in some kind of engineering. When they asked me what I planned to major in and I told them English, they said, “I’ve actually been thinking of picking up a minor or a second major in English!” I grimaced and said, “What would you do that for?”
After I ran that conversation through my mind again, I was appalled at myself and my reaction. Are criticisms of the English major so pervasive that even I, an English major, had succumbed to the evil clutches of the naysayers? Was there a degree of truth to the criticisms?
It has been ingrained in me that the humanities are wholly separate from the hard sciences. I’ve always loved reading and writing fiction, and when people noticed that, I was given a pat on the back for following my passion. When my peers, I noticed, displayed a proficiency for chemistry, they were praised and told that they were bound to be scientists. Doctors. Professors. I’m certainly not saying that I haven’t received support, and that I haven’t been told that I’m going to be the next J.K. Rowling (thanks, Mom), but there’s a degree of difference. When you’re good a science, success is not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. When you’re an English major, however, success is a matter of how.
And I think that Joe Moran addresses that how in the introduction of Interdisciplinarity. He mentions Wissenschaft, which he defines as “a not easily translatable term which essentially refers to an all-round, humane education cultivating the whole personality, rather than just the mind, of the individual,” and to me, this is what I want out of my English degree. I never mean to (or want to) look down at other disciplines because I’m interested in them. I mean, there’s no way I would ever major in biology or want a job in that field, but to get the best, most well-rounded Wissenschaft, I’m going to have to know some biology. And that’s okay.
A good thing about the English major being seen in such a bad light is that it’s encouraged me over the years to try to force myself to pursue other disciplines, and even though I never quite found a home in any of them (I once desperately considered being a chemical engineer even though I had no idea what one even does), I did manage to find a thirst for more. I want to learn as much of everything as I can, and as an English major, I think that my mind is especially open and perceptive to that. I’ve been trained throughout my education to think critically, and that doesn’t only apply to poetry.
So, it’s truly not a matter of if or when I’m successful, but how. Most people would count a famous author or a PhD with an English degree as successful, and I can’t disagree. But, as someone who is confident enough in her English major to admit that interdisciplinarity is not only possible but preferable, I see a myriad of ways that I can succeed spread out in front of me.