English Programs
Learning to read literature critically is excellent training for learning to read anything critically: newspaper and periodicals, web sites, political speeches, advertisements, corporate and business publications, and so on. In addition, the skills that you develop reading written works transfer to non-textual works as well. If you can analyze a poem or play, you can analyze a film, a television show, a music video, a concert or theatrical performance, an interactive web site—anything that involves language, image, or communication. Learning to “read” in this extremely broad sense is a basic life skill, applicable to virtually any discipline.
Reading literature also is excellent training for creating it yourself. You learn to be a writer by studying great writing, and you locate your own voice by learning from other voices, assimilating them, and locating yours within the writing tradition. In this way you enter into a long dialogue of which your voice becomes a part.
Beyond these practical applications, reading and creating imaginative literature pays great rewards in its own right. It’s a cliché that English majors live their lives broadly, but it also happens to be true. Careful, committed, and diligent readers live far beyond themselves, and one of the most important things that your education should do for you is broaden your perspective—that is, offer you the opportunity to place you outside your own realm of experience. This is precisely what imaginative literature does.
Bachelor of Arts in English
The degree is offered in subjects or fields of study which relate to human cultural, social and scientific achievements, supplying knowledge of humankind’s and the student’s own potentials. The program is a traditional liberal arts offering which emphasizes a broad and intensive background in the arts, humanities and sciences. Students who wish to prepare themselves for advanced study, particularly in traditional liberal arts areas, should consider matriculating in this degree.
Minor in English
Description of the minor in English