i don't regret going to college and i don't exactly regret majoring in English, mostly just because i don't know what else i would have majored in. i think that there's value in getting a general liberal arts education beyond preparing you for a specific career.
but every time i think about what it means to major in English and what it means to get an English degree, i am just floored by how pointless it is. literally how is writing essays comparing the ethics of fictional book characters considered a "serious academic discipline." what is it for. what does it teach you that has any application to the real world.
"through analyzing fiction, we learn how to be media literate and analyze the real world" yeah maybe a little bit, but if you wanted to learn to be media literate and analyze the real world, a curriculum could be put together FOR THAT (and probably have a lot of crossover with political science and history). instead we're pretending that having roomfulls of grown adults debate which characters in a made-up book are gay is somehow like. an efficient way to teach them how to identify misleading news headlines.
i mean, i see how debating which fictional guys are gay might be fun, interesting, and even intellectually stimulating, but it seems a little weird when some kids go to college to learn how to engineer buildings that won't collapse and other kids go to college to have discussions that could be taking place in a youtube comments section
