Embracing the Unconventional with English Graduate Student Adrienne

[MUSIC] Hello, everyone, and welcome to Dary of an X English major, the show that discusses literature and media like in your favorite English seminar course. I'm your host, Deja, of [email protected], and in today's episode I interviewed Adrian, an X English and Writing Double Major and current English master student. In this episode, we discuss continuing English education and graduate school, the Essentials Soft Skills gained from setting literature, as well as the importance of being a lifelong learner. Happy listening. [MUSIC] Adrian, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thanks for having me. >> So I just want this to be a conversation to learn more about you and your background in studying English, how you came to the major, what it means to you, all that good stuff. So first and foremost, can you let me and our listeners know what was the name of your major or concentration that you studied? >> Yeah, of course. So in my undergraduate, I had two majors actually, I graduated with two bachelor's of arts. One of them was a bachelor's of arts in English with a concentration in global and diasporic literature. And then the second is a bachelor of arts in writing with a concentration in creative writing. >> Wow, so Double Major, can you tell me more about how you came to the decision to do both English and writing? >> So I started out actually being a computer science major. Now I didn't actually make it to my first year of uni as a computer science major, but all up through high school up until maybe the very tail end of my junior year, I was going to be a computer science major because I know there's the stereotype that Asian parents are like, "Oh, you have to be a doctor, you have to be engineer." And my mom, she very much did contribute to those stereotypes, which is why I chose to go in more STEM row at first. And on top of that, a lot of the school systems that I grew up in were very much hammering, like you need to go into STEM, you need to go into STEM. So that's why I was leaning towards that first. But after I took a computer science major, which no hate at all to my teacher, he was lovely, loved him, and he was so, he was really passionate about what he taught. But I just could not do it. I was immensely unhappy and I thought, "If I have to do this for the rest of my life, I think I will hate myself." And so I told my mom that, I told her, "If you make me do this for the rest of my life, I'm sitting in a cubicle or wherever does these computer science things, then I don't think I am ever going to be happy." And so she agreed, "Okay, then what do you want to study?" And I said, "I want to study English." Now, initially, I'd want to do more on the creative writing side, but I mean, creative writing is really hard. I wouldn't say it's nascent in terms of university education, because obviously creative writing has been around for, I would argue for as long as humans have them, but there's a surprisingly few amount of universities that actually offer it as a major, I would say. So I wanted to text as Christian university and they didn't have creative writing as a major. And so I knew I wanted to do something with writing, but I didn't know exactly how to go about that. So I went to my high school teacher and I was like, "Okay, what is your recommendation for this?" And she was like, "Well, if you're going because TCU, they had a creative writing mind, or not a major." So I was like, "Should I do a double major in English writing? Should I major writing, minor creative writing?" And she was like, "Here's what I would recommend." She said, "If you have the time, I would get both of the majors, because it looks like writing encompasses creative writing, so you get to do what you want to do." But it helps you look better for jobs later down the line. And it's like, "Okay, so that's what I ended up doing." That's how I came to those two majors. Wow, so it seems like your happiness really was with English and creative writing. Where did that come from for you? Was there classes that you took in middle school and high school that made you realize you loved English? Or can you tell me more about that? Well, I've been writing since I was in fifth grade, I would say, writing creatively. I can think of my first novel having stemmed from when I was in fifth grade. Now, I'd never finished it. Just kind of glorified fan fiction if I'm being completely and totally honest, but don't knock on the fan fiction though. Oh god, no, trust me. I love that. I love that. Probably a little more than I should, but you know, whatever. So it was, and my dad encouraged it because my dad was also creative writer, not nearly as prolific as I am now, but enough so that he was able to see that I did actually have skill with creative writing even from a young age. And so he encouraged an nurture that habit. There was nothing in the school system that I would say that encouraged creative writing or English for me. My middle school was very much geared towards stem. Like I said, going through school, everything was pushing me to stem. All the programs that were higher level in my middle school were, you know, advanced physics, advanced biology. We even have robotics. But in the terms of being advanced in the liberal arts, the closest we had was offering more languages than the other universe, the other junior highs in our areas did. There wasn't any advanced English beyond pre APN gifted and talented programs. You weren't reading at it. There was no encouraging really reading at a higher level outside of what they were teaching you. There wasn't any encouragement to write creatively either. And I know that's something that I often talked to. The department head at TCU about is it really sucks the way that liberal arts aren't encouraged in junior high because they're both organically and inorganically and what I mean by that is like the inorganically is literally your school advisors, your teachers, just everyone around you saying don't bother with the arts, do stem related classes. And just the way that these classes are set up, very much discouraged people from taking those classes later in college or majoring in those classes. Like one of the smartest boys that I knew growing up with, he was always, he was a better, he was a more average reader than me. He was more into English than me in elementary school. And then by the time we got into middle school and high school, I think he kind of stopped reading almost altogether. If he was reading, it wasn't nearly at the level he used to. And much less, I don't think he ever wrote anything creatively. But I don't know, it just kind of sad, you know. Yeah, it is. And I think I feel the need to reveal to the listeners that like when I had the idea for this podcast come about, it was, I talked about this in the pilot episode, but it came about after reading this article that was about like English as a major dying. And it talked about all these people who some had similar instances to Adrian and that they were being pushed in a certain direction either by the school or maybe by family to study stem and had English or creative writing as a hobby or something that they like to do in their free time, but like couldn't see the value in actually studying it at a higher level. So it is really sad because I mean, I think about my experience in school when like it's, there's this weird jump from like when literacy, like actually learning to read is so important. And you have your little book reports and your book logs and it's like read, read, read. And then all of a sudden they're like actually, you know, like stop reading like once you're in middle school. And you're trying to think about would you want to be when you get older and all these things, it's not like that value placed on reading and which you can get from it to like vocabulary and just like expanding your worldview. Isn't really highlighted anymore. Yeah, and I, it's curious because I was talking, I was also a minor in Chinese and I was a frequent visitor in the modern languages departments so much so that I really got to know the French professor there. And the way she described the French school system, I think is really interesting. Now I'm no expert, but she, the way she described it is you decide what you like in middle school and then you'll take classes, cater towards that and they will help you see careers later down the line. So for her, she didn't know what she wanted to do. She just told her teacher, I like languages, I like studying languages, I like everything in office and that and she's like, okay, great, then we'll put you in this route. And then you can figure out what you want to do later. But like there, I don't, again, I don't know, I don't know, they have similar situation for people are like, no, you should do something more interesting. engineering base. But I just think a lot about how different the output of graduates like the distribution of graduates across different schools would be if in middle school high school when people aren't feeling as much pressure to do something that will lead to an economic success later and instead encourage to do what they like just how different that distribution of majors would be across all the colleges. Yeah, yeah, I would really I think that like in a perfect world or like in you know some kind of fictional universe listeners if you're if you're you know if you're a writer this is what I want to see like I want to see that dystopian point of view because it's dystopic because it's not our reality at all. But I love that you talked about that because that really was the birth of this podcast because there are so many people who had these ideals about studying STEM and are like just like STEM related fields and going into that and you know making a whole bunch of money and then on the flip side the humanities are where people are saying no don't do it because you're not going to make any money but there are like those invisible quote unquote are like those soft skills that you get that are just as just as fruitful. So I also want to ask you because you mentioned earlier on about what you studied in undergrad so I would assume that you know you are continuing on in your graduate education so can you tell me when when did you graduate and what are you studying now. So I graduated in the spring of 2023 and now I'm at the University of British Columbia studying a degree in English for a Master's of Arts. Okay so how did you come about so how did that come about? Did you always know that like continuing your English education was what you wanted to do like before undergrad or was it during undergrad that you came to that conclusion. I initially was not going to continue like I said a lot of my applications were informed by my high school teachers and different majors I was going to do and initially I was going to be just a middle school high school professor teacher and middle school high school teacher and you know I was happy with that but then when I got into college I was starting to talk to my professors and I was like yeah I want to write and he was like okay and what do you want to do after graduate and I was like oh I don't know I guess I'll be a middle school high school teacher and he was like hmm here let me talk to you about this and kind of basically explain like gently he was like look you can do that like I'm not trying to stop you from doing that but definitely consider that like I was a teacher like that too and it was really hard to do writing in that type of environment and having done different TA shifts with local middle school high schools down the line I know that like shout out to teachers because one of the teachers I was talking to said she said oh yeah I spent maybe eight hours a day less than planning and then you know in the next year maybe two three hours a day grading and then you know just that's an insane amount of time on top of you know the eight hours that they're working a day but that's what he was saying essentially is he's like they don't have as much time to do anything outside of their jobs because their job is teaching that's their main job so you're essentially trying to work two jobs but you're going to barely get paid for one so he was like have you if you like teaching though have you considered being a university professor so he's like then you get paid to write you get to pay get paid to do what you want and the teaching will be secondary but you'll still get to do it and I was like you know yeah I think I'm going to do that and I did a whole bunch of TA shifts later down the line both in a high school junior high level and a university level and I really just loved it in both aspects I loved you know I didn't get to do much teaching but I did at least a little bit and then I also got to having done a bunch of different research positions with professors as well I just I love the research aspect having done research myself I love the research aspect good I luckily like that very much solidified my decision made me realize like yes this is very much feasible for me I'm not I'm not you know flying too close to the sun here or anything and yeah so the goal for me here is that I want the goal was always to do a masters but I want to actually do two masters like I said I enjoy both the English and the creative writing side so I want to eventually get a masters of fine arts and creative writing as well and then also a PhD in English that way I could teach at the university level either creative writing or English or I could do you know research or writing them both and it still be very much accredited yeah so when it came to studying English at the higher education level you mentioned like research and how that is like a big portion of it can you tell me a little bit more about what are your research interests oh geez I have a lot of great but in terms of my specialties I would say right now I'm position my specialties to be within disability studies and contemporary literatures in terms of time period and then this is a long list but I usually sum it up as colonial studies but it's colonial post-colonial decolonial anti-colonial studies if you go by my departments in my department's terms and then this isn't a official term if anything I guess I would put it under conflict studies but dystopian literature so those are my four main the four sums up of my research interest and it sounds like a huge range but what really interests me and what I'm really really interested in and seeing the ways that all of these end up intersecting with each other and interesting facets of each other that they you wouldn't think match up right and so that's really really interesting and I think that I don't know hopefully our listeners can get a little bit of insight from hearing you have all these research interests but how they all coincide because I think at least for me when I was first learning about like how if you want to go into higher education like research is a large aspect of it I was always like well I have so many things that I'm interested in like how could I just focus on the one because so many professors that I had before I had like I guess mentors really it seems like like the one thing that they taught is what they love so much like whether it was like British literature of a certain time period or like African American women writers specifically so things like that it just seems like there was there was like the one thing so I like that it seems like for you you have all these different interests and now you're really focusing on okay well how do all these things overlap and like what kind of interesting research can come out of that intersection so I feel like that's what English is supposed to be about and it probably was too for those for those people too I'm just saying like that was my perception for a very long time that I if I was gonna go into higher education there have to be like the one thing that I wanted to study for the rest of my life and I was like I just don't know what that is you know I would say there's also a misconception too that you have to know what that is like I said I worked with the English Department and research positions over the last year my undergraduate and I was talking a lot with the head of the department and she was she said that by the time she got into graduate school she still didn't know what she wanted to do it took her a while of searching and she said it was actually kind of funny how she kind of made a like okay I guess this is what I want and her mom was like what do you mean you guess that is what you want she was like it's all you ever talk about yeah so it feels like it's really hard to make a decision because just the field of English is so wide but for me the reason I managed to figure out okay this is what I want to do is because it's all I talk about it's the literatures that I read it's the things it's the themes in them that I found the most interesting the portrayals of them and you know to the point that my friends are like I mean how could you have ever thought you wanted to do anything different that's all you ever talk about you never shut up about like X theme and X book yeah like it really it takes up so much brain space I think that's what's so interesting about doing some of these interviews because I meet lots of different people who have like studied English and there's there's always this moment where it's like yeah I mean I've loved this thing for for so long that it's weird that I thought that I could ever have a life where it wasn't like your bread and butter basically because I had that same revelation when I did this podcast and I was like I'm doing a whole podcast about an English major and yet I'm still like interested in a track that like would kind of add some of the soft skills but it's not about literature and I love talking about literature with people in like dissecting it so you know but it's I think that that's awesome that you you realize that it was was basically like intrinsic to who you are. - Yeah, yeah, and I feel like that's the experience for so many others. Like honestly, if I ever had to describe the English degree, it would be unconventional. - Yeah. - Because I'm surprisingly one of the youngest graduate students in UBC right now, in terms of-- - Wow. - In terms of the English masters. Now, like I don't go up to everyone and talk about their ages, but the amount of people who went into a English masters, they're right out of an undergraduate degree, is a lot smaller than you would think it is. - Okay, wow. - That's interesting. - There are people who I look at, and I think that they're right out of an undergraduate degree just based on what I could estimate their ages. But yesterday we had a social function where we were celebrating the publication of the books of five of our professors. And I was just walking around, I was chatting with people, and I was chatting with one person, and she was one of the cases of she ended up in a STEM field, but kept gravitating towards English. And she-- So she has two bachelor's as well, but they are separated by several years. Because her first time going through university, she did a bachelor's of engineering, and she became an engineer, and she just realized like she kind of longed for the English. And so she went back to school, got an English degree, and now came to a master's. - Wow. - And she said, "I just realized, you know, every time I had to take a random class that wasn't supposed to go towards my major, it always was English." Because I'm-- Because at first it was just about, "Okay, this English class fits into my schedule the best." And then later it was, "I like English, so I'm just gonna take more if I can." And again, now here she is. She quit her job as an engineer, and is a English master student at UBC. - That's awesome. And I love what you said about describing English as a major or just as an area of study, as unconventional, because I think that that is the best way to describe it. There's so much to this major and this area of study that I feel like goes beyond. And I've talked about this on the podcast before about how like, yes, it can be based in literature and some people may think, well, it's only about reading books or what have you, but at least for me, and it's not always literature for everyone, but at least for me, it's like, well, what is this book saying about the larger human life? How can we see this theme going on right now, or how is it like being mirrored in the journalism that's being produced right now, or like my interactions with a random person I meet at the grocery store, like those different things are what make it so fascinating to me and why I feel like there's always gonna be something to learn, and even when you were talking about your research interests, like this umbrella of English has so many things under it. Like if you wanna study something or if there's something that's like this idea that you, that's in the back of your head that you just like can't shake, like there's probably someone out there who's like also trying to research the same thing, and if there's not, then like that's how these new movements and theories and ideas come to be, because someone was curious enough to like keep digging. So I just think it's great, and I love too that there's such an, what you said about, you know, people who have had other careers and came to English, because I think that the humanities is actually really good about that. I mean, obviously very biased, like hello English podcasts, but like I don't, I don't know, I think that with some other kind of field, you know, like the lack of experience quote unquote, would deter people. Like if I just like wanted to kind of shift gears and like go into something stammer-related, I don't feel like, I would definitely have a hard time getting my foot in the door because of, you know, the lack of years of experience in that field. I feel like English is okay, they're like, hey, you know, we wanna know about you and why you're so interested in this field. So like come and tell us. - I also feel like English is also really conducive to, like I said, you don't have to choose a research topic now. - Yeah. - 'Cause I feel like English as a field is really conducive to being able to shift around. It's not like engineering where it's like, you know, you're an aerospace engineer for 20 years and you realize, man, I really don't like this. I wanna go into mechanical engineering. And it's an easy shift. - Right. - From, I know one of my cousins started out as an aerospace engineer and university and she switched mechanical engineering and it delayed her graduation because they are just so different versus me. - Wow. - You know, if I wanted to shift my area of study from post-colonial studies to medievalists, there's going to be no issue at all. - Right. - I'd be a little difficult getting into PhD programs down the road because you know, I wouldn't have as much medievalist knowledge. So that'd be a little questionable. But it's not impossible. - Right. I was gonna say like, it can be done. Like someone is gonna be curious enough to know what triggered that switch and also how you think, you know, your post-colonial studies background could inform, you know, like the mid-evilist, whoa, tongue tied research. You know what I mean? Like it's just like there is value in having those shifts. So I love what you said about how English is really conducive to it. So I'm curious to know what you would say your dream career is. Like we kind of touched on that a little bit, like is there like one specific thing? Cause I, it seems like you have your goals at least are gonna allow you to be able to teach lots of different things just because like there's that creative writing aspect to it as well. So can you tell me about, you know, what's your idea or ideal of a dream career? - So my ideal dream career is obviously professor. But in terms of like exactly what I would teach to make it really that dream career, I, for me, what would be ideal is if, and this is going to be difficult depending on the program. If, so for example, you'd be see the creative writing school and the English school are completely different, but at TCU, there is no separation. So creative writing professors are also English professors. And so my dream would be that to be almost like one of our old professors, Matt Wentzel, he was, he, he, he can output creative works. He puts out also critical scholarly works. He's fairly new. So I don't know if he's taught any creative writing classes yet, but he has taught English classes. And I know that there are other English professors who teach both critical scholarly classes and creative writing classes. So that would be my dream. It just would depend on the university. Okay, yeah, that's really, really interesting. And I think that that makes like, I don't know, I think that it is kind of difficult. I'm sure for other people out there too, to kind of choose. Like do I only want to do creative writing or do I only want to do like the English side of it too, like English literature. And so I kind of like that you have this idea of being able to do them both, because it will be interesting. And you have that interesting perspective on how they inform each other. And I love that you mentioned our professor shout out, Dr. Wenzell, because I think that he had such an interesting outlook on even how his classes were structured and thinking back that might have been due to the fact that he had, I don't want to say split brain, 'cause like they're under the same thing, but he had this kind of duality that really made my experience in the class very, very interesting and fun that I hadn't gotten before. - And it's a very approach. - Yes, yes, he really did. And so I think that's cool. Like do you think that I guess when it comes to what universities would want that, do you know like what is, what would be that process? Like would you want to find somewhere that they would be okay with you teaching both or would you find a place where you could create your own path because the fact that you would have all of those degrees and you would be able to do it. What's kind of your interest in there? - Honestly, I have no clue. I guess that's what makes it the dream right now, 'cause you know, it's not reality yet. But I know I was talking, when I was talking to Dr. Wenzell a little bit more closer to graduation. He was like, you know, and he was like, what are your future plans? What do you want to do? So like, well, this is what I want to do. And he's like, you know, that's really good because more and more universities are looking for professors who have interdisciplinary degrees and approaches to things because it's not necessarily a little bit of a, a little bit of shade during academia as an institution right now, not necessarily because they're actually interested in, you know, expanding ideas and thoughts, you know, diversifying up departments, bit more so it's killing two birds with one stone, but hey, You know what for me? Yeah, me. If you're benefiting then, you know, and job security then, you know, there's that. Do you think that because I feel like the elephant in the room might be this, lots of school goes into it. So what is your relationship to the academy and like being a student? Do you enjoy it? Oh, I love it. Like, okay. I was joking to my mom. I'm going to be an internal student because obviously learning does not stop. It doesn't stop. And graduate. Didn't have to. Like, I'm still, I know my professors that a lot of them have said I'm still learning. Like there's still more I can learn. It just the learning is a lot more self-guided or you know, you learn from your peers instead of someone who's higher than you. Right. And so I am more than happy being a student for the God. This number makes me want to cry. Oh, what is it? Happy being a student for another eight to ten years. I mean, hey, slow clap it out. That's the important thing and that's why it's incredibly important to find programs that are conducive to you. It's one of the institutions that I got accepted to from my master's program. I was thrilled. It was one of the top universities in the world, comparable with Harvard and Yale. But they, and the university I go to is also comparable. Also up there, right. Also up there. I mean, you know, we had a prime minister graduate from here. Whoopi. And so I went to my professor. And I got accepted to a third, but that one was in a consideration. It was really expensive and no funding. But I went to one of my professors and I was like, hey, Dr. B, what should I be considering when I'm trying to choose between these two? And she was like, okay, well, do they even have any professors in your subject field there? I was like, I mean, they do, but it's only like two compared with the ten over here. And she's like, then go with the one with the ten. She's like, you have no guarantee that those professors are going to stick around. You know, if they go on sabbatical, then you're screwed. Because it's a two year program and it's gone for one year, then that would be good luck. If they don't teach any classes that are in your subject field those years, you're out of luck. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm enjoying my master so much is because every professor at UBC is teaching something that has even the slightest bit of relevance to me. So for example, shout out Dr. Potter, her creating bibliography class. Wonderful. Essentially for that class, the class description was, okay, so we are going to create a scholarly edition of this book and you guys will get editing credits and, you know, awesome. It's exciting. Yeah. It's really exciting. But when I took that class, I thought, okay, well, I'm doing this for the experience because it's a very experienced based class. But eight and four, it was so deeply rooted in colonialist thought and we were having to approach. Well, because it was a book about like early American literature and the different types of, like you know, the American myth of the first Thanksgiving stuff like that. And so we were having to engage an incredibly critical thought. Okay, how are we going to communicate the, how we're supposed to balance this old way of thinking with our new way of thinking of colonialism bad. Colonialism very bad. All of these things I contribute. How do we do that in an unbiased way and encourage students to critically like think of things on their own? Wow. Yeah. Um, it obviously brought the publishing company had very strict things. They essentially, we can't tell students what to think. For the very obvious reasons, like, you know, if this is supposed to be something that students to read and come up with things on their own, what ideas on their own, we can't say this is what you're supposed to think. But we want, we didn't want to promote negative things like colonialism and imperialism. So we had to be very careful, very conscious of the different things that we were including. We had to be, uh, and also just engage with the text with, you know, different things like that in mind. Essentially, it was very informative in that sense. Like, it taught how to engage and teach with texts like this. I'm probably doing that a little bit of injustice. Um, right now that's what's on my mind. I was writing a paper for it earlier today. Um, so it's maybe not as extreme as I'm describing, but still like the, the main point of this being even a class, I thought would have nothing to do at all with the subjects that I study. Yeah. And that's what makes me just so thrilled to be here, you know? Yes. Like it's all still like tying into, um, why you're there in the first place. That's really, really exciting. And I, and I really love what you said just about like being a lifelong learner or like even making a joke about being in school for so long, because I think that there is so much value, especially when you are in a program that you feel like is feeding your intellectual spirit, I guess I'd say, um, that, you know, it doesn't, I don't want to say it doesn't feel like school because it's still school, but it's just like it's making you into that person you want to be. That dream, like professor person who's going to be able to like teach all these classes that are both like creative and critical and just like, you know, like that person is being, is being shaped right now. And I think that that's the exciting thing. Because for me, um, while I was in school, I was always kind of like not counting down, but I was definitely factoring in my next steps as far as like, do I still want to be in school, um, you know, when I'm this age? And I, I finally let all of that go when I realize how much I loved English and what I studied and also finding out what my research interests, um, are or were or what they might, you know, become who knows, um, and like that's is like the important thing. Like my brain is going to be filled with so much information that just like makes me happy and makes me who I am and makes me like want to engage critically with the stuff that I read and things that I do. And like, if that's going to make you happy and fulfilled in your future career, then like, who cares if it's going to be 10 years for school, you know? So I think that that's like going to be really helpful for people to hear because it was helpful for me to hear too. Yeah. Yeah, and I know, um, that it's also, I love what you said about, you know, you're, you're seeing a professor be built essentially because it's not just you. It's all the people around you too. I know. Oh, yeah. The PhD students at TCU, whenever I was there, um, they were all really close. They were always, if there was like a university function, they were all hanging out and I know at UBC, they make an effort to make sure that we're at least close with the other people in our same year. And it's great because in, I feel like when you're an undergraduate, even in your major, um, in English, people are going all of these different fields like, oh, yeah, our closest friends, like in our little clique, in our little clique. Yeah. We're all like, we went, you and I are the two that are going, you know, the English graduate school route. Yeah. Um, Brooklyn is wanting to go and do like PR event organizing and after it is over in law school, shot. Yeah. So, you know, in undergraduate, everyone is still going in such vastly different directions, but then whenever you get further up and up into that, um, academics tree, then the club closer that they get to you. So it's not necessarily, it's building, it's not even just, you know, you're seeing the building of a new professor, you're seeing the building blocks of a new brick of academia as a whole. Yeah. Wow. That is such a good way to put it. And I think that that's, that's exciting. And that makes me excited because I'm pretty sure when, when this podcast episode goes up, I'll have already revealed that I'm applying to my master's program and hadn't been revealed before that. So hello. Um, and that makes me. No, no, no, that's okay because it's, it's going to be out by then. Like, yeah. Um, but that makes me so excited because like that's like looking towards the future of, you know, like minded individuals who are basically going to be shaping the way English is taught in like, you know, 10 to 15 years, I love it. I love it, right? Because the professors that we had, you know, like went through that same experience and I can, and I can see, you know, the possible, um, methods that they probably came up with when they were. doing their PhDs or their masters and how they translated that into the classroom. Like we had so many, I don't know, at least like for me, especially because I transferred schools, I had a very like set kind of experience in class that was like very cut and dry. And then I like transferred and then all of a sudden I had classes where like there was like ungrading. Like grades weren't you know the main thing. And then there was things that weren't like ungraded, but like you got to kind of make a make a case for yourself when it came to like your final grade. And so many things like that that I can tell came from this like pedagogical research wave that like I had an experience with my first like lower level I guess because I was my first two years at my first institution like my first like kind of entry level English courses. And so all of that is really exciting to me. And I think that it makes the academy seem a lot more like approachable and accessible because like speaking with you and you know hopefully I'll have other people too who are also going to be in in their graduate studies. I think it kind of lifts this veil about like what are graduate English graduate students doing and talking about and thinking. And like what do they want to bring to the classroom when you know the classroom is going to be there's you know for the taking. So I love all of what you said. Yeah in terms of demystifying the idea of a master's too. I know something that had thrown off a few people is the idea of having to do a thesis and not all master programs required that. I didn't know that until this year. Yeah like I I would not be able to ask I would not be able to name one student and their name but because I long since remember for God and who it is. But I remember I was talking to someone back in undergraduate and I was like okay are you thinking of doing a master's because we were talking about future plans and she was like no because I don't want to write you know 50 pages I'm not a writer like that. I like the research but I don't really like doing that. Yeah that's understandable. But having got here the first thing that they said to us in the class where you know it was essentially it's all right welcome to English master's programs is you guys don't have to do a thesis you guys know that right you can just be work and graduate with a master you guys know that right and some people were like what wow yeah wow I love that because it also I think what that does is you know it does open the door for people who you know maybe they like that person that you talk to who feel it feel as if they're not the writer who can do it. I think that at some point anyone could do that like truthfully because that scares me too but I'm also like I know I can grow into a writer that can do that but either way it really opens the door because then people are like okay like I can just enjoy my classes and put all my blood sweat and tears into it and know that like that's going to get me to the finish line. Yeah and like I will say there are stipulations around that like if you want to do a PhD it's more recommended. Sure. You a thesis because you know then you you can produce proof that yes I can do these longer aspects of writing that is required for a PhD but I know a lot of people who would have probably wanted to do a master's but and not a PhD and just didn't because they again they were scared off by the idea of you know 50-page thesis or I think it's 50-page max thesis if I'm not incorrect too so it's not even as much as I thought which I thought it was 100 pages for some reason. Oh Lord. Yeah, dark times when I thought that but it's definitely not 100 pages which and even then like I know there is someone I think who had written like either 70 or 100 pages further thesis and they had to argue to write it because they wanted to they said I this is going to become my disagreeer and the department was like okay yeah sure yeah you can write more go ahead yeah to kind of like basically like help them along the way to getting to that dissertation in the end. Yeah department just discourages that so it's not even like after write this or else you would not get your degree it's okay do whatever you guys want. I think that this is interesting because English as like you know to the layperson I'll say does seem like oh like everyone who's an English major like loves writing or loves reading and like that's kind of it but like you know just like coming from to like from an ex-English major and then from like a current graduate student like yourself like there are still like fears that I had and still have about like you know my my writing abilities too you know so I as much as I love love love English so much there was a point in time where I was like I mean I can write a good five to eight page paper but when it goes beyond that like I don't know if I can't you know and just like not really believing that like I had the skills to kind of do these things and I think that some of that fear comes in because you think like oh well I'm just I'm just a student like I'm not the professor I'm not the scholar so like of course I'm gonna have these spheres but I think that and so it's kind of comforting to know that other people felt that way too who were like already in graduate school because like now I'm realizing that it's all all of that as a process and you can get to that place and like no one is no one's gonna force you to you know like write something like super super long or or whatever like if they don't think that you really have the abilities to do it like you know what I mean like in I don't know if it's like media or representation just about like oh well you need to write this 20 page paper now student and like no one no professor I feel like is gonna ask you that ask if they don't honestly think that like you're a capable student who's gonna be able to do it because you've gotten yourself this far and you know now it's just about buckling down and kind of just growing as a student to to be able to accomplish that what do you think I'm sorry to cut you off now go ahead I wonder if it's just because of the emphasis that and this might be a little a little reachie-reachie but I still wonder if it's because of an emphasis that society places on numbers yeah as long as even for several publications I've seen like we have this work count but if you go over or under you know as long as it's good quality we'll still consider it and I mean that's why the professors even hammer in certain numbers and undergraduate not so much in graduate I think but they hammer in the idea of a seven to eight page paper that's you know 2500 3000 words because that's a conference paper and I initially was like oh these are such random numbers into one professor was like oh no this is a very specific style of paper that we're looking for it and again like you know if it's for a conference it can go longer shorter right as long as you can produce something that's good and then the three to four thousand I think that's the correct range and word paper is a publication journal style and like a peer reviewed journal paper and then anything beyond that it's I I would not be able to tell you why other than maybe just to buff out your writing abilities but like even that has purposes and even then like I said I've seen publications that have said like okay if you go over or under we'll consider if it has to be you know as long as it's good because it's quality and this is the quintessence of the English study like the field of English as a study is quality over quantity it's not if it's on grades is on grades on numbers is not as strong as in English as it is in like the stem fields yes like not you got this problem 50% correct it's okay you're exploring this I can see somewhere where it can grow can you elaborate on this more or I just you know you have operated on this so much but you might have gone off a little bit on the rail here they can't they can't give you an arbitrary number for your work right right and I and I love that the field does seem to accept that because I was really surprised as I went through my undergraduate degree studying English that like a lot of the times I actually very few times honestly was I required to write extremely extremely long papers and I think that honestly at that point some of the professors were trying to challenge us to be able to be to have quality writing and to make a very compelling but yet concise point so like that emphasis on numbers you know I was so afraid of that when I was first like going into into college because in high school I'd never had to write super super long papers so that really did scare me but I loved that like it ended up being it worked out because because I was in the perfect field among professors who like, yeah, numbers wasn't, that's not the end all be y'all. Like even if you do receive a grade on an essay that like you're not 100% okay with, like it's more about what you gain from the revision process if you're allowed to revise and resubmit and all that. Like these are the skills that they're trying to like instill in you as an English major. And so that quality over quantity, I think is so important. I do wanna ask you, which we've kinda touched on, but I would love to know what your answer is specifically. Like what's a skill or a lesson that you've learned from studying English that it's just stuck with you the most and continue to stick with you since you're still studying it now. - This is probably going to be a skill that I think people are going to listen to and go what? But I would say empathy. - Wow. Okay, yeah. - I have this conversation a lot with my friends because my core friend group is made up of five people including myself. And of them, there are three of us who are in the arts and humanities field. One of them is an artist in the traditional sense and she's currently trying to start up a tattoo apprenticeship. So, you're gonna have to go. Another one is an art history major and the three of us were kinda talking. And we were like, you know, we realized that this is probably gonna sound a little shady, but we realized that, you know, just objectively, we were the most empathetic of the group. And we were like, is it because we're an artist, you know, the we're in like the arts, the humanities field? Because I just, I don't know how anyone can go into the English major and walk away without any empathy because it's just the different things you read. It's so eye-opening because the reason, there's a reason that reading is cited as a form of escapism because in the act of reading, you are physically putting yourself into other people's shoes and living their life as they are describing it to you. Like if I, if I pulled this book out, this is my coffee of the great gaspie. Let me just take an excerpt and I will read it. - These two. - And I'd be damned if I go in. I'd had enough of all of them for one day and suddenly that I included Jordan too. She must have seen something of this in my expression for she turned abruptly away and ran up the porch steps into the house. I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi. Then I walked slowly down the driveway from the house intending to wait by the gate. In that moment, I stopped being Adrian Stallings and I became that caraway because as you're imagining this, you're imagining those movements, you're not the person who's sitting there reading this happening. You are the man putting his head in his hands because he's just so tired of it all. And so English, at least in the universities that I've taken in that, we've read. And this is all functions of just the different, this is where the creative writing comes into play in English. - Yeah. - You such a first person point of view is supposed to make you empathize more with speakers, help you identify, put yourself in their shoes, et cetera, et cetera. And over the course of my English degree, we've read so many books like this. And if you can read them and walk away with no empathy for the character who, the character, whether they're an autobiographical figure, or whether they are the narrator writing a memoir, or biography, or whatever, or if they're completely fictional, you empathize, become that person for a little moment. And when you read work after work after work, after work after work, where you are living a life different than yours. For me, a lot of it was a, people a lot in different time periods and a lot less privileged positions than I am. Like, you and I talked to Dr. Manning's African American Literature class. How can you read some of those narratives and walk away thinking, okay, yeah, I can keep discriminating. I can keep just acting completely, like oblivious to that, yeah, yeah. - Like, it opens your eyes and just helps you see the world in a different place, as a different place. Like, the way that I have you disability was completely changed by Dr. Craig's disability class. Like, let me ask you a simple question, Deja. Do you support getting rid of plastic straws? - Getting rid of-- - For the sake of the environment, do you support that? - I think that my interpretation of it was that larger companies were trying to like make that happen. And so I actually, I lived for a time in the city, in DC where all I had was paper straws. Did I enjoy it? I did not. To answer your question, I think that I would, I would support it if it were done in a way that I felt was feasible for the little person. - Exactly, I loved the way you described the little person 'cause a lot of people would just take that face value and say, yeah, you know, for the environment. - Right. - The thing, we read Alice Long's Year of the Tiger and she went off on the idea. She's like, we can't get rid of straws. She didn't, you know, like, whether it was plastic or whatever, it didn't matter. Straws still need to be offered, 'cause guess what? You might need to describe this for your listeners, but how many, does every human being on the planet have hands? - Right. - If they don't have hands, how do they drink from a cup? Does every human being on the planet have full mobility in their arm, in their fingers, in their limbs to be able to do this? - To pick up a water bottle, yeah. - Have the motor finest to bring it up to their mouth and do this and take a drink. Does every human being on the planet have that ability? - Yeah. - And so do you? - That's what's made, yeah, go ahead, sorry. - Sorry, and like, again, like that completely changed the way I looked at the world. Like, I walked into the elevator and I said, that's not accessible. Someone who, some a person who has dwarfism is not able to reach those buttons at the top. A person who is sitting in a wheelchair is not able to reach those buttons at the top. Like, and that's what Alice Mongs, by our way through you was revealing, is a lot of the ways that there is a law in this world that doesn't cater to like certain populations and you would never realize that if you were not part of the population or it wasn't pointed out to you. And English, it out to you. English, it out to you. They say point blank. This building is inaccessible not because I can't get in the doorway 'cause you know, they stamped a little wheelchair button. They put a ramp out there. But because I can't see the, on the shelves, I can't see on the map because it's too high for me and my wheelchair. It, it's, so again, that's what I would say, the biggest scale that I've come away with in my English studies is just empathy and being able to see the world through other people's eyes. Even without a guidance of, okay, here's what, even without Nick saying, I put my head in my hands, I can just look at a person and I can imagine it. You know, I know, I've seen all of these things in the world pointed out to me and I can see how it affects you now. - Yes, I think that that is a very profound answer. And I feel like, 'cause I know you were like, what, like people are gonna be like, what would I'm saying, empathy, but like, no, I think that your explanation really does encompass what, what reading can and does do, especially when you're taking these classes where, you know, you're reading literature, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, that's all about, you know, identities and things that, you know, in your everyday life, you're not going to think of. But by reading these stories and these accounts, you are putting yourself in that person's position and you're allowing yourself to think about, or to change your frame of mind because now that you have this information, or I would think, right, because like you and I have talked about this before, but now that you have this information, like how does that inform your everyday life? Like do you leave the class and you just forget about it or like do you decide to make a conscious effort to have that in your mind all the time now because you're aware of the fact that this is someone else's reality and I've experienced it for, you know, two, 300 pages and it's like completely changed the way I see the world. And like in a good way though, because I think that, I don't know, some of the times it may seem like, oh, well, you know, you can't, focus on what other people are experiencing when there's X, Y, and Z going on the world. But I think that at least in my opinion, English is kind of bringing us back to like the humanistic nature of like understanding other people and deciding to like take that understanding and walk with it every single day. So I just, I love that you said that as your answer about the skill or the lesson because it is, it's both, it's a skill and it's a lesson that you've, that you've kind of encountered there. So that does lead me to a couple of final questions I have about like your reading life. So what are you currently reading? Are you reading the great Gatsby right now? Are you reading a course reading? - I just actually finished my courses. So good. - Okay. - Yay. - That's our, at least for the term. - Yeah. - Or just for my essay. A lot more peer review articles. So not as fun. I am, this is not just the great Gatsby, this is all of his other work. So I do work. - Okay, cool. - But that's gonna be more for fun over the winter break though. I'm hoping to focus a little more, get some reading done for my thesis, which I'm not gonna start until the summer, but it never hurts at least familiar size. Familiarize yourself with the books. - Yeah, yeah. - So for that, I'm going to be reading the Hunger Games, Trilogy Plus the Ballad of Songbird and Snakes. - Ooh. - Yeah, it's sitting on my shelf right now. And then also my favorite author, her, the last English translation came out on my birthday actually, and it was delivered to my house in Texas. So I have to wait for it. - Okay. - But it will be reading that. - More for fun. - And what book is that? - That would be Heaven officials blessing. So like I said, I was a Chinese minor, and so I love the intersection of being able to, you know, read and then also learn a little bit of Chinese because I did read it not very in depth. But I did read it in the original Chinese. - Okay, that's really cool. So like, where do you get? So for some of your leisure reading, I heard that you say like that author is your favorite author, who is it? - That would be Mochang Tomchil. What she writes under a pseudonym, so that's not her actual name. - Okay. - Yeah, she writes a lot, which I will say, if you are thinking of reading it, the first two books do have explicit sex scenes in them. The other one doesn't. - Okay, so just a warning to listeners. - Yeah. - The third one is my favorite. And they feature queer relationships in them as well. But the reason why I love her last two books and specific is because they are very, and I think they fit a lot into the idea of post-coloniality, maybe even a little bit of decolonial, I'm not quite sure about that, but post-colonial I definitely see, because it is about de-centering the importance of different institutions in the world because they are inherently problematic. The third one in particular deals with the ideas of idols, and the ideas that idols aren't perfect, that they are very capable of making mistakes and being bad people, and it's important to just keep a good attitude and focus on doing good in the world, even when shit gets real rough. And I'm very much not doing a justice, 'cause it's kind of not fresh on my mind after a lot of the readings I've been doing. - Sure, yeah. - I've seen people explain it a lot better than I can, but yeah, that's a huge reason why it is. The second one in particular, you can see a lot of themes of social justice, questions of morality is a big feature in both of them. Ideas of self-sacrifice, et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot I can get into, because they are extremely long books, and one of my friends and I calculated it. Her third book is about, love, geez. I think we said 2,400 pages. - Whoa, that's long. (laughs) - Yeah, that's why. I'm kind of like going through my head and I'm like, oh, there's a lot there, yeah. - Critiques of privilege, et cetera, but yeah, there's a lot that you can, there's a lot in those pages. - So where do you get most of your new book recommendations? How do you decide what to pick up? - I'm not really much of a person who follows pop culture. So honestly, the Hunger Games, I actually had, that's the reason why I'm trying to read those overrick, 'cause I never read them. I was, again, one to really follow pop culture. I just kind of did what I've found things that were interesting to me and I read them. A lot of my reading does come from my classes, 'cause like I said, I take classes and things that I'm super interested in. - So in a line. - So I kind of find, end up being really interesting. One of my favorite books was, one that was originally assigned for a class. - So I'm the metalist, definitely recommend that ending. It's very insightful. - What's the title? - The reluctant fundamentalist. - Okay, and who's the author? - Let me look at the author. I have an idea on my head, I don't want to mispronounce it. Okay, so the author is Mohsen Hamid. Oh God, I know I'm a pronounced author. It basically may, it calls into question, the reader's morality and the reader's beliefs about like about Muslims and it calls into question their own prejudices. And that's what the ending does. And I'm so fascinated. I am not doing it justice. It's been a horrific thing. - Oh wow. - Since I've read it. - Yeah, yeah. - But I remember just reading it and being just completely blown away by it. And those are the best kind of books. The ones that like, I mean, it's sticking with you even now. So I'll definitely put that title in the show notes for so that the listeners can refer into it there. So that, I mean, that was all the questions I have for you about your reading life. I have really enjoyed our conversation about academia as it relates to the English major because I think that there's so much that I learned and there's so much that can be learned, right? Because we're lifelong learners. And so I'm so glad to have your perspective. So thanks, Adrian, for all your insight. - Yeah, of course. And thanks again for inviting me. - Yes. So I will, like I said, have all the information, some of the things that Adrian has mentioned in the show notes and I will see you all in my next episode. (gentle music) And that was our interview. Adrian is such a close friend of mine. We actually met on the first day of a writing course that we both took. So having her on the show felt extremely fitting. Also as someone who's on track to starting an English graduate program, I truly valued all of her insight as it relates to her experience and just debunking some of those myths of continuing education in grad school. So a huge thank you to Adrian for speaking with me and being on the show. Thanks for listening to Dary of an X English major. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow the show on your chosen podcast listening platform, leave a review on Apple Podcast and follow the podcast Instagram at Dary of an X-ing major, that's E-N-G. And I'll see you all soon. (gentle music) [Music]