Despite decline, English major looks to retain its value

Student 2
Word Count: 844
From 2013 to 2015, the amount of English majors at Florida State University dropped 10
percent.
That decline (which, interestingly enough, failed to affect the schools editing, writing, and media
track) reflected a nationwide trend surrounding the major. The amount of English degrees given
out in 1970 was around 63, 900, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System, which is compiled by the Modern Language Association.
The number dropped to around 31,000 in 1985, began to rise by year until 2009, when it hit a
little over 55,000, and then began another decline. By 2014 (the most recent year for which data
was available), numbers had dwindled to around 50,000, about a nine percent decrease.
Some attribute the decline to the economic recession of 2008. Those who were in college
during the recession wouldnt have felt a necessary push to elect for a different major, but when
the next generation of students came in, they brought along with them a new mindset of
practicality.
There is a certain literal-mindedness in the recent shift away from the humanities [majors],
wrote Veryln Klinkenborg in a 2013 column for The New York Times. Parents have always
worried when their children become English majors, what is an English major good for? In a
way, the best answer has always been, wait and see an answer that satisfies no one.

Commented [KV1]: Good job on rounding the

numbers. Makes it more polished and easy to read.

Commented [KV2]: You could choose to elaborate

more on this paragraph and you could provide more
information on why those in college during the
recession wouldnt have felt a necessary push to elect
for a different major.
Commented [KV3]: Good job on cleaning this quote
up.

In 1991, Klinkborg wrote, the top two majors at Yale were history and English. In 2013, they
were economics and political science.
This summer, about 7,000 students who graduated from Florida State in summer 2014, fall
2014 and summer 2015 were surveyed by the university on their post-college plans. For those
that received a degree from the College of Arts and Sciences, 69 percent received a job offer,
while 70 percent had received a graduate school offer.
Specifically looking at English, 67 percent of students in the major received job offers, while 68
percent got graduate school offers. Editing, writing, and media placed students in grad school at
the highest rate at 81 percent, while literature helped students get the most job offers, at 73
percent.
Comparatively, the College of Business had an 81 percent job offer rate, along with a 78
percent graduate school offer rate. The results should be taken with a grain of salt, as theyre
reliant on response rate and self-reported information, but still offer insight into the thinking of
incoming students.

Commented [KV4]: Good job on cleaning this

paragraph up and changing the start of the sentence.

Professor Robin Goodman, director of the Literature Program at Florida State, believes that the
decline of English students reflects not only a focus on financial futures, but a lack of
enthusiasm for the study. Attention spans have fallen off, and stemming back as far as primary
education, priority has been removed from reading and writing.
The lack of value of an English degree is something that Goodman fundamentally disagrees
with, however. As less and less students enroll in the major, the more valuable the skills of the
major become. Writing, communication, and creativity are all the hallmarks of the English major,
and all talents that companies and businesses put priority on.
TV, public relations, advertising, they all have a basis in literature. We went back and talked to
recent graduates, figured out what they were doing and why they were doing it, and why their
literature major mattered, Goodman said. A lot of them are working in media or in law school,
but theres a bit of a range.
Raoul G. Cantero, III was one of the 19 graduates to respond to the questionnaire. Cantero, a
class of 1982 graduate that served as the first Hispanic Justice of Florida Supreme Court,
detailed how his time spent in the major helped serve as the foundation for his law career.
English, he said, helped emphasize the importance of the clarity and conciseness of words, an
important facet of law.
In Goodmans eyes, technical skills and jobs arent the only benefits of the major. In fact, to her,
those are side notes to the true value that comes along with it.
There are other things that it does, you feel more empowered because you can change the
present, she said. Literature is going through a bit of a historical low point because people
dont have the attention span for it, but in the past it's been the basis of political discourse.
Look, youre going to spend 30 years in your job, and youre going to hate it by the time you
retire and its going to be really boring because youre just going to have sit in your office.
[College] is the one time that you can ask big questions and discuss ideas, do you really want to
think about accounting, or how youre going to turn your computer degree into a job thatll be
lonely and isolating? You have a long time to be doing those things, so if youre an English
major, you can spend those four years exploring the way culture got to be this way. It doesnt
stop you from going and doing those things later on, it opens you up.

Commented [KV5]: I thought this was a better draft

than your first. It was clear that you took the advice
from the one-on-one conferences and applied it to your
second draft so I commend you on that. However, I
noticed that you left that last quote in place. It is a great
quote but you if you choose to the quote can still be
broken up. Overall, I thought it was a solid effort on
revision.