There’s a common question that English major ears are familiar with when an adult inquiries about what you are studying in college. Usually we are victims to blank faces and hesitant “...well, what can you do with that? That’s a lot of student debt for a degree you can’t do anything with” My usual response is an equally snarky reply, except I sprinkle it with elevated vocabulary for a touch of passivity. When I declared my major, I had big dreams and visions of publishing novels and poetry perfecting my signature for anticipated book signings. However, I learned to adjust that dream to more of a reality as I took courses in storytelling, technical writing, and critical literary theories. These courses taught me that English majors are not spending four years in a glorified, expensive book club. Instead, we are developing a craft that goes beyond writing.

 

When I started my major, I focused on simply the craft of all-things-English rated. Yet as I complete the duration of my career, I realized that I am not developing just a craft -- but instead, a brand. Understanding the difference of those two words -- craft and brand -- I was unshackled by the pressure of using my degree to be a writer, and aware of the opportunities with my degree to brand myself. My internship as an early-education assistant educator allowed me to exercise my hard and soft skills of communication and writing from a smaller scaled version of my anticipated career. After graduation, I plan to work as a corporate trainer for a large property management company writing and executing training curriculum for new hires.

 

Starting my internship, I didn’t see the correlations. However, after only a few classes did I realize the astonishing amount of similarities. In the most cliché ways, I feel like the children taught me more than I taught them. I learned to adapt my styles to their responses. The most challenging part was adjusting the same lesson to each different child -- some more advanced than others. I anticipate having that obstacle in the workplace, as well. In order to successfully adapt to these, I had to pull lessons I learned from the past four years, using a variety of courses and methods from each class to meet the student in their area of need. There was a rewarding aspect, intrinsically and extrinsically. I felt satisfied watching these students learn and remember the stories and writing processes we studied together. I was internally encouraged by their progression and externally motivated and confident to see the same development of the individuals in my future career.

 

During the 2019 Fall semester I had a professor who repeatedly stated, “every task should be approached ‘what can I learn’” This statement was meant to encourage begrudging students' motivation (or lack of) when it came to completing lengthy assignments. Each week was a constant battle between shifting the mindset from “what do I have to do” to “what can I learn.” As I entered my internship this Spring, I was reminded of that simple statement -- what can I learn.

 

As an English major, my placement as an early education classroom educator felt unnatural and like uncharted territory. However, as my college career progressed, I altered my attitude of that dream, exploring other opportunities that an English degree can lead me too. My experience in the classroom taught me that, as an English major, we are not limited to writing. We will be hired because of our extensive, practiced skills of written and verbal communications. Our craft is our dialogue, our brand is how we teach and lead others with it.