Self-doubts of an English major

There’s a certain sense of security that accompanies the word “university.” Compared to a high school diploma, a degree seems to imply a certain level of self-assuredness, of having successfully chosen a path. However, now that university is more than a series of application forms, this sense of confidence in what I have chosen has dwindled. I have spent a significant portion of my first year questioning the validity of my studies, and as much as I love the arts, I can’t help but feel that a large amount of my quarrel with my degree has to do with being a humanities student. How can I blame myself for feeling downtrodden when I often receive deflated responses from others after I say I’m studying English, as if they were expecting me to say something good and I have just let them down? Who wouldn’t feel frustrated when their own professor advises that “as a writer, you should never say no to free meals”? I am tired of all the jokes I have heard about how computer science, engineering, or virtually any other field is more employable than the humanities. No matter how much humour is placed around it, my degree is not a joke, and having to defend it as if it were is exhausting.

Yet the root of the problem may lie within myself and not the views of others. Recently, while making small talk in one of my lectures, a classmate of mine said he had “mad respect” for my English degree. As uplifting as this was to hear, it occurred to me that while he has admiration for my studies, it’s possible that Idon’t. Have I let the stereotypical notion of an arts degree as useless and vague corrode my appreciation for art? There is no one explicitly telling me my English degree is a waste of time, and yet, whenever I wear my “U of T English” hoodie around, I can’t help but wish that the first three letters of my degree were followed by an “I-N-E-E-R.” The most confusing part is that I do genuinely love the arts and my chosen course of study. I have no untapped desire to be a scientist or mathematician—writing has always been not only what I excelled at, but what I love.

Why, then, am I so confident in my passion but plagued with doubts when it comes to turning my passion into a degree? It has recently occurred to me that I have allowed the fear of unemployment and a lifetime of fruitless artistic attempts to scare me into uncertainty. However, it is specifically this kind of fear that threatens the arts as a whole, and I will not let it win. The bravery and creativity it takes to embark on an artistic career in the current social and economic climate are more than enough to validate an arts degree. To all my fellow humanities students out there, I would wish you all luck, but none of us need it, because the arts are about so much more than luck. Art takes time, patience, and a healthy dollop of self-trust. That is something worth being proud of, and I will not let anyone’s doubts strip me of that—not even my own.