English
In the Division of English, we value the core human skills that will be especially vital in a technology-intensive future. Engaging with language both as readers and writers, our students develop their capacity for critical thinking, communication, and human connection. Our seminar-style classes invite students to develop their own voice and build close working relationships with faculty and each other. We encourage students to think deeply, listen carefully, and, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “live deliberately.”
Working with a faculty advisor, students in the English major or minor develop a self-directed course of study based on their individual goals. Because of our flexible curriculum, many of our students also pursue double majors with Communications, Business, Art, or Theatre, as well as minors in Philosophy, Women’s and Gender Studies, Education, and more.
Our graduates go on to law school, library school, and grad programs in literature and creative writing; they go into education, writing and communications, publishing, finance, and marketing; they work for nonprofits, and they run their own companies. And because English majors know how to think and communicate, they have the fundamental skills to succeed in the jobs that haven’t been invented yet.
Upon completion of this program a student is able to:
- Read between the lines (i.e., show how texts communicate more than their surface-level meanings)
- Demonstrate an understanding of literary history
- Use historical, literary, and critical contexts to analyze texts
- Write descriptions using vivid imagery and concrete sensory detail
- Create round characters
- Understand and write from different points of view
- Understand the conventions of multiple genres and apply those conventions to their own writing
- Effectively express, organize, and develop complex ideas
- Make logical arguments, supporting claims with evidence
- Communicate effectively both orally and in writing
- Use writing to discover (not just report) what they think.