Nine Things Not To Say To An English Student

Doing an English degree? We can guarantee you’ve heard at least one of the below in the past week.

“English is so easy.”

Maybe at GCSE when the simple PEEL paragraph structure got you an A*, but this doesn’t work anymore (cries). You’ll put in hours of work to scrape a 2.2 whilst being up to speed with one module but failing the other. Try reading novels from the 1500’s and analysing old English language.

“You’re so lucky you only have 9 hours contact time.”

Like all degrees, you’re always expected to do a lot more than the time you spend in lectures and seminars – for English especially. After all, you can’t read 100s of pages for each module per week and then write 3 3000 word essays for the same day in class; you have to work as hard as everyone else.

“So you’re going to be a teacher?”

“If you’re not going to teach, what are you going to do?”

Surprisingly, teaching isn’t the only thing you can do with an English degree!

“I’ve been revising for months, I wish I didn’t have to do exams like you.”

It must be nice to do a degree where there is a right answer.

“Please could you read over my [essay, personal statement, cover letter, application, CV, email, etc etc etc]?”

We’re normal students and don’t enjoy writing essays. What makes you think we want to write yours and edit every piece of writing you have to offer? Also in terms of plagiarism, that’s a big no.

“So you’ve read…?”

I forgot that if you study English, that must mean you’ve read every single book in Waterstones.

“You must know what this word means – you do English.”

I am not a walking dictionary.

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