The First Step - Figuring out a presentation...

I’ve never been much of a “blog person,” but here I am anyway, starting something new because I’m hoping it becomes a habit. I’ve realized that writing outside the boundaries of a rubric or an assignment can be a good way to check in with myself, especially now that the semester is racing toward its final project - an anxiety-inducing presentation. So this first post is part experiment, part reflection, and part early brainstorming session for the final assignment standing between me and a graduate degree

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I guess the easiest place to start is where I am right now staring down a mountain of a task while attempting to stave off any early celebrations. Luckily, I've found that the best way to not get too ahead of myself is to reflect. It’s strange to look back and realize how differently I wrote at the beginning, such as how unsure I was, how rigid I felt, and how much I tried to fit the “right” structure of academic writing. Somewhere along the way, I loosened my grip and remembered that writing can actually be enjoyable. Sometimes it’s even fun. Sometimes it helps create worlds. Sometimes it makes connections. Sometimes it’s a tool that surprises me by showing me what I really think.

That’s sort of what I want from this blog.

Lets open the book of "Me", shall we?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the decline in English majors across universities. It’s something that’s been hanging over the program since I started. That is, this idea that English degrees are somehow becoming “less practical,” or that students aren’t choosing them because they’re worried about the job market. I get it. I’ve lived through the anxiety that comes with wondering whether my degree will translate into something tangible. But the more I’ve gone through this program, the more convinced I am that we’re framing the whole conversation wrong.

English isn’t a narrow degree. It’s not a single tool. It’s a Swiss army knife.

I believe that the more you study writing, rhetoric, literature, and communication, the more you realize that these skills weave themselves into every part of life such as jobs, relationships, leadership, conflict resolution, creativity, management, teaching, even something like writing a D&D recap. I’ve seen this firsthand. The work I do professionally relies constantly on clarity, organization, tone, and audience awareness despite not being tied to the English field. And the more advanced writing I’ve done here in the MA program has only sharpened those skills.

So when I think about my presentation, I want to explore this exact problem. Why are fewer students choosing English, and how do we show them and everyone else that the degree is actually one of the most adaptable ones out there?

Some early thoughts I’m playing with:

• Students aren’t seeing the bridge between academic writing and workplace writing.

• Many believe that STEM equates to jobs and Humanities simply leads to uncertainty.

• Universities often fail to market the versatility of English degrees in ways younger students can understand.

• The world is changing fast, and communication, rhetoric, and critical thinking are actually becoming more valuable, not less.

• English programs need to foreground what they already teach: adaptability, synthesis, analysis, empathy, argumentation, collaboration, and multimodal communication.

  
  

I also want to show how this program affected me personally. I wasn’t always confident in my writing, and I definitely wasn’t always adaptable. My early undergrad essays relied heavily on following a prototypical formula. My first grad-level Shakespeare paper humbled me in the midst of me believing I turned a corner, but it also pushed me to take another step. Since then, everything I’ve done from academic research to lesson planning to casual creative writing, has changed because of the tools I’ve picked up along the way.

That’s the part I think I want to highlight in my presentation. English isn’t declining because it’s outdated; it’s declining because we don’t talk enough about how relevant it actually is.

And maybe that’s where I can offer something meaningful. Not a lecture, but a perspective shaped by my own very real experiences working full-time, navigating corporate communication, tutoring, building lesson plans, writing creatively, and now finishing this program.

If I can present the English degree as a Swiss army knife, that is, something flexible, resilient, and applicable in places people don’t expect, thenI think I’ll be heading in the right direction.

For now, I think it's safe to say this space has given me a lot of clarity in what I'm hoping to do with my project. Maybe this blog will become a habit, or maybe it’ll just be a space where I practice writing freely, something I haven’t let myself do in a long time. Either way, it definitely feels good to start.