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Hardly anyone majors in English anymore. Scholars debate why.
College Fix ^ | September 20, 2018 | Staff

Posted on 09/20/2018 7:00:15 AM PDT by C19fan

The English major is shrinking at an alarming rate. This according to a recently published report by the Association of Departments of English.

The report, published in July, states that approximately two-thirds of English departments that responded to a survey reported either a decline or sharp decline in the number of undergraduate English majors.

(Excerpt) Read more at thecollegefix.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: english; literature
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I guess reading lesbian medieval poetry is not popular with students.
1 posted on 09/20/2018 7:00:15 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Because in America we speak Spanish and a hundred other languages.


2 posted on 09/20/2018 7:01:57 AM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~ Eat Sleep Fly Repeat ~)
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To: C19fan

Maybe a generation of glorifying Spanish to welcome illegal alien invaders? People have pillared English, no wonder no one wants to study it.


3 posted on 09/20/2018 7:02:10 AM PDT by Reno89519 (No Amnesty! No Catch-and-Release! Just Say No to All Illegal Aliens! Arrest & Deport!y)
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To: C19fan

The only job you can get is college prof teaching English majors?


4 posted on 09/20/2018 7:02:26 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: C19fan

Thats why speling and grammer is so common in the media these days?


5 posted on 09/20/2018 7:03:29 AM PDT by AppyPappy (How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?)
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To: C19fan

Because Garrison Keillor


6 posted on 09/20/2018 7:03:33 AM PDT by bigbob (Trust Sessions. Trust the Plan.)
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To: C19fan

I always wondered way anyone took it as a major. Perhaps the students want to have a marketable skill after university.


7 posted on 09/20/2018 7:03:43 AM PDT by datricker (Cut Taxes Repeal ACA Deport DACA - Americans First, Build the Wall, Lock her up MAGA!)
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To: C19fan

cuz ppl txt today, & hav 4gottn how 2 uz eng.


8 posted on 09/20/2018 7:04:58 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: C19fan

For the same reasons that cursive, spelling and grammar are no longer taught.


9 posted on 09/20/2018 7:06:40 AM PDT by TheZMan (I am a secessionist.)
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To: C19fan

It used to be (maybe back in the 1950’s or earlier), that someone with a degree in English could be counted on to be proficient in understanding complex material, and writing about subjects with clarity and precision. There would be lots of jobs for people with those skills, in management, staff, etc.

Those days appear to be long gone, and being an English major is where you go after finding more job-oriented majors to be too hard.


10 posted on 09/20/2018 7:06:40 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
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To: C19fan

There was a time when you had to be really intelligent to be an English major to comprehend the complexity and nuance of language and literature. Unfortunately academic English departments have devolved into crass political cabals that merely adhere to the leftist narrative. Most “professors” even at “premiere” universities cannot be described as real scholars. It has been worse than a dumbing down. Rational students avoid these programs.


11 posted on 09/20/2018 7:07:33 AM PDT by allendale (.)
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To: C19fan

My daughter has an associates in English. She works for a publisher and hopes to become a proofreader or editor.

She’s off today and is probably standing in a used book store as we speak.


12 posted on 09/20/2018 7:08:49 AM PDT by cyclotic ( WeÂ’re the first ones taxed, the last ones considered and the first ones punished)
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To: C19fan

Bingo.

“Bauerlein said that the English classes of today’s world have an atmosphere of resentment and “the study of these social issues is not analytical scholarship, but a class about victimization.” Bauerlein said he feels that students are less likely to take these classes because they go to college to learn, not to feel bad about themselves.”

I was an English major over 25 years ago. For the most part, professors didn’t attack Western culture.


13 posted on 09/20/2018 7:11:04 AM PDT by Rumierules
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To: C19fan
Colleges have priced themselves out of the market.

Paying a fortune to a college for something you can get by just reading is nonsense.

As an aside, I took a course in my senior year of undergrad school entitled "Study of the Short Story." We had a text book that focused mostly on James Joyce. I read the text book before the course started and would have been bored to tears except that I sat behind a really cute girl.

The professor added absolutely nothing that I couldn't have gotten from the library or book store.

14 posted on 09/20/2018 7:11:57 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: C19fan

English majors cannot even teach English in public schools because the teachers unions and the education mafia has shut them out in favor of education majors, the dumping ground for underachieving students.


15 posted on 09/20/2018 7:13:23 AM PDT by centurion316 (Back from exile from 4/2016 until 4/2018.)
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To: C19fan

English grammar should be a required subject for journalism students. You don’t have to read much of their work to understand why. At the same time,this should be learned in high school & you shouldn’t have to pay any college a fortune for this knowledge.


16 posted on 09/20/2018 7:15:35 AM PDT by oldtech
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To: C19fan

Its not just English. Its History and Philosophy as well. But the professors in these areas teach coarses that are required but are really anti-white male coarses. The reality is that History, Philosophy and English don’t get you a job. And frankly College English is not the way we write any more.


17 posted on 09/20/2018 7:16:39 AM PDT by poinq
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To: RoosterRedux

I took a short story class in college. We were supposed to analyze a bunch of short stories.

I’m admittedly pretty dense. Even in my mid 50’s, I have virtually no introspective ability. I take things at face value.

The instructor must have led a somewhat perverted lifestyle. He saw graphic and demented sex in every word of every story.

I did poorly in that course because I just don’t and can’t bring myself to think that way.


18 posted on 09/20/2018 7:17:24 AM PDT by cyclotic ( WeÂ’re the first ones taxed, the last ones considered and the first ones punished)
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To: poinq

Unless you want to be a teacher an English major is pretty much useless.


19 posted on 09/20/2018 7:17:54 AM PDT by rstrahan
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To: C19fan

Who Killed Shakespeare? What's Happened to English Since e Radical Sixties? by Patrick Brantlinger (Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis, 2013)
20 posted on 09/20/2018 7:18:56 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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