English Major

It amazes me how each Tuesday comes around and I’m frantic to find an interesting story of my life to post on Wednesday. For me writing fiction is much easier than trying to write interesting biographies that people other than my family want to read. Not that there are many people besides my family that currently reads this. I’m okay with that.

With my husband just starting a new semester in school it reminds me of when I went to college. When I started right out of high school I was so sure I was going to be an elementary teacher. I had everything figured out. The second week into the second semester I realized I would go crazy if I was an elementary teacher. Not that I don’t love children and enjoy spending time with them I just knew I couldn’t do it. What was I going to do if not be an elementary teacher?

Side note: Part of the dissuasion from the major was I took AP Calculus in high school and passed the test for a whopping 8 math credits. For an elementary education degree I was required to take a math class specifically for the major. I think they were supposed to teach us how to teach math. Not this teacher, we just learned basic math all over again. I had no problem; I finished the 100 question final in 15 minutes and got a 98% out of the class. I don’t complain about only having 98% because I spent most of the time playing the computer at my desk. There were a few people who actually struggled with that class. I couldn’t believe it, we weren’t even covering algebra or geometry. Drove me bonkers.

So I decided to major in communications because I really liked my speech class. Another couple of weeks went by and I changed it again. I finally settled on English with an emphasis in technical writing. I’m a shallow person and prefer reading genre fiction for plot over anything else. I do like symbolism and all that but I hate analyzing every paragraph of every page and trying to figure out what the author, who lived two hundred years earlier, is trying to tell us now. Don’t get me wrong I love classics such as the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Jane Austen.

So here I am, a technical writer who hates grammar but is slowly getting better through practice. I’m not good at the mechanics of writing but I wouldn’t call myself bad anymore. This is what a college degree gave me and I love it.