I want to pursue clinical pharmacy. I like the idea of being in a hospital setting and working with other health professionals to think of cures for patients while also working with medicine. And although I could be content with just a major in Chemistry (or biology if organic chemistry straight up kills me) I feel that there would be something missing while journeying through my four years in college. One of my goals in college is to really perfect my writing and to explore new pieces of literature. Because in my head, if I’m going to a college with an easily accessible library containing a wide swath of literature on anything and professors who are experts on that literature, I’m going to take advantage of that and make room in my schedule to study the non-science literature to avoid making my brain explode. Because why not get my money’s worth doing something that I want to do and something that will help me in the end. And with this being said there are other reasons why I want to pursue an English minor.
1. I want to explore the faculty in the English Department
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Now this reason is pretty standard for just about any department of any subject but something about English teachers really struck me as a growing student. My homeroom teachers in middle school were the designated “literature teachers” teaching “literature class”, my high school debate coach was an English teacher, my senior year English teacher solidified my interest in the subject, and in general, the instructors I’ve had in the English department have some sort of significant influence on way I think and approach assignments today.
2. I want to write the perfect essay.
Go up to any English teacher/professor and they’ll say something like “There’s never a perfect paper, but there are always papers that are darn close”. And I want to prove them wrong so bad. Now granted my ability to perfect my writing in the midst of taking, what it seems like, a thunderous wave of chemistry, biology and math classes for my pre-pharmacy prerequisites, may hold me back, that only makes my determination stronger. Which leads on to my next point.
3. I want to write better, if not as well as, the English majors.
I don’t mean to sound pretentious when I say this but part of this motivation comes from just from pure motivation. It’s like aiming to get a perfect score on the quiz and answer the extra credit on top of that. It’s not about being obsessive but it’s whether or not you’re in the right mindset and that’s what I’m saying here. I would love to roll into an English class and have an essay that can stand up to my peers. I would love to have my professor look at me the same way as they would their other students despite of me not putting my full education in the department they teach in. And most of all, I would love for people to read my writing and say something like “Hey! Your writing isn’t bad for a Chem major.” Because that would make my day.
4. I want to be able to think on multiple spectrums.
Granted right now my English class today is, for the most part, more of a road block to acing my biology and chemistry exams than it is a creative outlet, I really think that I need to take at least one English class a semester to keep myself cultured and actively thinking and reading about a wide swath of topics. I want to be able to have my brain know factual information and memorize concepts and vocabulary in my science classes but also think on an analytical level and think rationally in my English class.
5. Did I mention I need at least two English credits to fulfill my pre-pharmacy requirements? Because I do and the English minor is an uncanny way to integrate my interests into my requirements. Funny how the world works. And with that being said . . .
6. The other minors offered are either not interesting, not schedule compatible, or don’t seem meaningful to me.
I have spent a lot of time considering my minor for the sake of planning ahead because a chemistry (or biology) major on top of pre-pharmacy requirements require a lot of credits. I have considered a minor in communications, economics, finance, neuroscience, computer science, Spanish, sociology, psychology, education, and even history (and I don’t even like history a whole lot). But as much as I could make a good deal of these minors work into my schedule, I think about how my writing will look my the end of my undergrad and think if it will be worth it. I’m pretty sure that English isn’t the only subject that is geared towards writing essays, it’s definitely a subject that will make your writing better. I have the library so I’ll just read the literature those other subjects are offering on my spare time if I need to.
7. My English department has cool classes on very hyper specific topics which I think it great.
Again. I know this is true of all departments of all schools, but still. I’m taking a class in the spring just about literature about the Vietnam War in class appropriately named “Literature of the Vietnam War”. How cool is that? And with class names like that who knows what kind of literature we can expect? I love how college gives us the opportunity to take one topic and hone in on that topic's literature. Depth over breadth for days!
8. Writing is just awesome
Writing is the ultimate form of communication and the ultimate platform for expression. I believe that everything we learn is made more important if we can express it in writing. We can of course have physical conversations with the people around us and we can educate people on a face-to-face basis, but as humans, we can only do so much when it comes to maximizing the amount of minds we can touch. Everyone functions on a different schedule and that means not everyone will be ready to have a conversation when it comes to your time when you want one. Writing easily resolves this issue because it allows a person to be inspired by your ideas at any time. An English minor would allow me to express my thoughts on anything and bring that on a platform, whether it’s an Odyssey article, a book, or an essay, that can be accessible to everybody.
