I actually enjoyed it. Tons of reading! One novel per week and an essay after! And we were required to have 2 years of lit?
And I’ll bet all of that reading and writing has given you excellent verbal and written communication skills.
I overheard two young teachers discussing how they will engage elementary students in a subject they were teaching.
Every other word they used was “like.” It was obvious to me that neither of them had studied English grammar or had read any great literature in their teacher preparation courses. I feel sorry for their students.
As an English major, I had to read two Shakespeare plays every week. My other classes required reading American and 19th century English literature and writing literary analysis for great works of fiction and Romantic poetry—Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, etc. We had to examine each word in its context to understand and appreciate how great writers employ the nuances of the English language to convey complex ideas in figurative language. It was not easy to do all of that reading and to meet the professors’ standards for our written work.
I will never use “like” repeatedly in a sentence the way obnoxious illiterates do today. Nor will I confuse the use of “lie” and “lay” and “further” and “farther.” And I’ve managed to make a living by employing my communication skills. They’re highly relevant in my career. I’m not a lawyer but many of them began as English majors.
Effective communication skills are rare and are highly prized in most occupations. Most of the math and science courses I took are of no use to me today. My liberal arts courses, on the other hand, have been immensely worthwhile. My education, though, was completed long before anyone was “woke.”