There’s something ever-so-isolating about being an English major.

Or maybe it’s just going to a liberal arts school where not everyone I pass by is pre-med or pre-law. My closest friends all have different majors – which probably says something great about our ability to branch out – but still leaves me somewhat in the dark for my own progress. I feel like papers for English classes are substantially more challenging than any other paper I have even attempted to write.

In a class last semester, I handed in what I thought was one of my worst pieces of writing and I ended up with an actual 100% on it. That doesn’t even seem fathomable. The professor literally left no comments. Either the professor was just done from the start, or the English major is paying off.

I also am the resident editor and proofreader for all my friends because I have a knack for it. I’ve started to get so good at it that I need specifics for what I’m supposed to be looking for or I’ll mark it up to all hell. I feel really bad about this usually – especially on the history papers – which aren’t so much about style as they are about substance and validity. I tried to scale back as I didn’t want anyone to feel like I was telling them their writing was the worst, but I would constantly remind myself: “This is how I’d want someone to help me proofread”.

There are perks of the English major. Obviously, the pros outweigh the cons, but believe me there have been times I’ve found myself in a moral dilemma. The English major is a multi-faceted tool, the Swiss army knife of majors. Sometimes this diversity as a major creates some confusion for my little humanities brain – especially when faced with the ever-impending doom of graduate school and internships to prepare me for graduate school.

What can you even do with an English major?

Is “greeting card writer” seriously a job opportunity that APEX is considering livable for an English major? I’m starting to think people don’t know what an English major is. Do I know what an English major is?

One of the biggest things that irked me when I was thinking about my future as an English major with a very special interest in archival studies and library studies was the jobs that graduated English majors go on to do after Wooster. Almost all of the jobs listed were with medical or technology companies, something that I most certainly have no interest in doing. I would like to do something creative or at least interact with media in my day-to-day. I don’t want to sit in an office listening to my 2029 Spotify Wrapped while I write a new LinkedIn post for all of my work colleagues to know I just got a promotion from medicine label writer to medicine ingredients writer.

Obviously, this isn’t going to happen. But without any further research, this is how the English major can look. It is obvious that other people also don’t feel the need to put in the work to understand it also.

Something that has been a growing up point for me this semester is learning how flexible this major is. I’ve learned to embrace it with pride and excitement about my future in doing something I love.

My family is not one to argue at Thanksgiving, surprisingly. If we’re arguing, it’s not about the things that families usually argue about. We’ve had arguments about how to spell words, how stories actually went, and things like that. My family unit is usually small for Thanksgiving – no big tent outside with five plastic tables with tablecloths on it – just one table with both of the leaves inserted and a lot of Fiestaware from my grandmother’s house. I feel like a lot of people despise Thanksgiving for obvious reasons, but I have never felt that resentment towards my family. Everyone lives down the road: just a call away. I set the scene this way because I love my family, but sometimes conversations can turn sour, even for the most unconventional Thanksgivings.

This particular conversation turned sour almost immediately. Sitting across from me is my non-Fiestaware-bearing grandmother, Nana, who went to beauty school and later went to medical school to become an Anesthesiologist. She still works too – just limited hours. We are so vastly different in both demeanor and outlook – her current demeanor is diminished by the glass of Thanksgiving wine she is sporting. I am drinking water after finishing our dreaded yearly 5K and then making a good portion of the food that was sitting on the table, emitting steam.

Nana and my grandfather, Poppy, have always been the odd couple to me. Nana is an outspoken wine grandmother. She has a lot on her mind and watches MSNBC a lot. We have a lot of conversations where we butt-heads. Poppy is reserved, but insightful. He never finished college, he left the last semester for reasons that I still don’t understand. He will have very complicated and thoughtful conversations with me when it is just the two of us. If Nana is there, I barely hear anything from him.

It’s not that Nana hasn’t been supportive, but the tone of the “you need to like what you do, but also make sure you’re making money” that throws me off every time. The entire family has historically been worried about money – if Gigi was here, she would have said something along that vein as well in agreement. I can’t say I don’t understand where they’re coming from – if I was planning on living in West Virginia for the rest of my life, I’d be worried for myself too as a creative. I guess that’s where I am conflicted.

I love Nana, I just sometimes find myself in moments of pent-up anger that someone with a generation between us doesn’t understand my passions. She really does love me, and everything she says is in a positive light. She means all of it from a sincere place in her heart, even if it might not translate that way over to me. This is something I would like to remind myself of during the holiday season when I am spending more time with them. I also need to remind myself not to be resentful of things that my family might say to me generally, as I really will never know how much time I have left with them. However, she does think that I will be the next big writer for Saturday Night Live – and that was something I was offended by.