One English Major’s Journey to Success

When I was graduating high school, my favorite English teacher had one piece of advice: “Don’t major in English.”

At 17, I didn’t understand his message. I felt he had my best interest in mind — he had taught my middle school humanities class when I was 12 years old and had first sparked my love of poetry through his insightful Friday morning poetry lessons — together, we had stood out in the glistering January snow reciting Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man” and memorized the opening stanzas to Henry Wadswroth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life.” He had led me through my senior year capstone project in creative writing, which had taken me to London to retrace the footsteps of my favorite authors, and he would always perk up whenever I mentioned that loved literature more than just about anything else in the entire world, a triumphant expression metastasizing on his face.

He had left me stumped. Why not study the subject I was the most passionate about?

When I bought my one-way ticket to Manhattan to attend Columbia University, surrounded by the world’s future leaders and brightest minds, I couldn’t understand why so few people cared about literature. I had expected a legion of disciples of the humanistic tradition, which is always how Columbia advertised itself historically, but on campus, the most popular major was economics, followed by political science and computer science. My social circles buzzed with the world’s future bankers, lawyers, and engineers, and each of them sneered at my desire to study English. The major was not rigorous enough, I would have no job, I would be paying off my student loans until I was 80 years old, I was wasting my Columbia education. Beneath the weight of post-college reality and cutthroat competition on campus, some of my peers in the department succumbed to the pressure: I witnessed humanities majors, one by one, switch over to one of these more “practical” majors–-or, at least, add on a more “practical” minor. But I was set on becoming a writer.

The negative feedback only snowballed from there — and once again came from people who presumably had my best interest in mind. My friends warned me about being stuck in debt for the remainder of my quixotic existence and advised me to pursue internship opportunities in the business sphere. My academic advisor suggested that I pick up a minor in economics and also extolled the merits of those same business internship opportunities. Distant relatives asked me if my life goal was to become a high school English teacher it wasn’t). I was a sort of laughing stock on campus for believing that I would make it in the professional world, armed only with my English degree and lacking a tangible backup plan. But all I knew at that stage in my life was that I was a talented writer, and I had always been told that talent and hard work will get you anywhere.

Indeed, not only did I lack a backup plan, but I also had no Plan A. I was studying English because I loved literature and writing, but as senior year crept up on me, I knew that I would need to sustain myself and my future family and make strides in my professional life. I pursued an MA in English primarily to buy myself another year of rumination and graduated with no set plan in the midst of the pandemic. With applications to many PhD programs now postponed, I knew that I could no longer hide from reality in my academic ivory tower. I was delivered my signal that the real world was beckoning.

In the intervening years, disoriented as a college graduate and disheartened by the lack of applications for my degree, I began to edit college essays from high school seniors as supplemental income while I carved out a game plan for my career. I took a job in copywriting and quit in less than a month. I interviewed for roles in asset management, real estate, and finance writing and turned down offers for all three after quickly apprehending that the corporate world was indeed not made for me (and that I was not made for it either). I continued on with my college essay editing, feeling somewhat ashamed before my peers who had been thrust directly into six-figure jobs upon graduation. I had no profession. I was still trying to make it as a writer, but the novel I had written in college was going nowhere in terms of representation or publication. I had thought that it would be easier to latch onto at least someone or something in the publishing world, but entry into the industry was not through the sort of pellucid window I had imagined. Had my peers and advisors and family members been right all along? Should I have studied something completely different or at least have taken that offer in asset management?

I kept on editing those college essays, hopping around from one college admissions firm to the next in an attempt to maximize my hourly rate; the longer I kept at it, the more I realized how valuable my editing and pedagogical skills were to the futures of these students looking to secure an education. Not only that, but my aptitude for communicating with and guiding younger students had quickly made me a standout applicant for these college admissions consulting firms, and my services saw a great increase in demand. I was working several jobs trying to make it in Manhattan — all while continuing my writerly pursuits — but I was starting to earn a decent income just from editing college essays. And that when I realized that I had been right all along about the value of my degree.

Flash forward several years. I founded a successful college essay startup based on my aptitude for writing and communication. Every day when I wake up, I don’t have to rush off to a dull office or report to an overworked boss who takes his personal failures out on his employees. I am in control of my own schedule and can choose to take vacations without anyone’s permission. I get to cherry-pick my coworkers and use my management and organizational skills to oversee the larger trajectory of my company’s growth. I employ over 20 people — some of them the same people from college who once laughed at me for studying English. I outearn my friends who studied finance, CS, and law, and because of my flexible schedule and the freedom of being your own boss, I have time to share my poems with the world through my newest venture, the Pens and Poison project. My peers look up to me for professional advice, and I’ve become a sort of bastion for unconventional success. Being an English major in the 21st century may be unpopular, but if I’ve learned anything from my experiences, it’s that if you’re good at something, you will make it in our world. There have been setbacks, but my English degree has taught me all about human interaction and communication — the secret to success.

Don’t let anyone tell you that literature is useless.