September 19, 2025 • 19 mins
Maybe we think we know what a day in the life of an English major looks like: classic novels, writing, poetry, writing, presentations, and (you guessed it!) writing. But what do English majors actually learn? Where do they fit in the world outside of universities?
The variety of answers may surprise you.
This week, Dr. Ross and student producer Ashley Worley launch their new series highlighting inside stories and college prep practicalities from UT Tyler's English department. Department chair Dr. Ann Beebe and English student Jim Clayton join the discussion to share what's really happening in English classes. If you're choosing your degree, preparing for college life, or just curious about other experiences in higher ed, this series is for you.
Have more questions about life inside an English department? Email us at ADRquestions@gmail.com or leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you!
Want to learn more or connect with UT Tyler's Department of Literature and Languages? Click the links below!
- Department newsletters
- Facebook page
- Instagram: @uttylerlitlang
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
So, as you all have probably figured out, one of the
goals of this podcast is toeducate folks about what goes on
at universities, and thecentral college in most
universities was the College ofArts and Sciences.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
For this series, we're going to be introducing
each of our wonderfuldepartments in the College of
Arts and Sciences by bringingyou a top professor in that
department and one of the topstudents as well.
We hope that this is veryhelpful to you as you're
choosing your major or justwanting to learn more about what
to expect from college life ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy.
So here we are in the Ask DrRoss podcast.
Today, our guests are Dr AnnBeebe, who is the chair of the
Department of Literature andLanguages, and our soon-to-be
college graduate, jim Clayton,who is an English major.
But I'd like each of you totell us a little bit about
(00:56):
yourselves.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So we'll start with you, dr Beebe the current chair
of the Department of Literatureand Languages.
I've been here 24, going on 25years.
I am an early Americanist,which means I teach literature
pre-1870.
I have a book out on EmilyDickinson and my Anne Bradstreet
(01:17):
book should be coming out thisyear.
I have been lucky enough toserve in many different roles,
including the PresidentialFellows Faculty Advisor.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Now, Jim, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
First off, I'm a 54-year-old undergrad senior.
My career previously was in theoil and gas industry.
I was a safety trainer overseasin the Middle East.
Then COVID happened and youknow, middle age is a little
difficult thing to go throughwhen you're dealing with the oil
and gas industry.
So rather than stay in that, Idecided to go back to school and
(01:47):
do what I really wanted to doin the first place.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So the big question is why?
From oil and gas to literatureand languages?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Well, literature and languages and writing was never
far from what I did.
I was the one guy on the oilwell site that was walking
around with, you know, a copy ofCount of Monte Cristo or
something like that, and someonewas always asking me why I'm so
weird.
But for me you're doing atransitional career.
You've gone from something verymanual, labor intensive.
You're looking for afoundational career, something
(02:19):
that you build on, and today'ssociety tends to kind of look at
English as a bunch of these andthousand prose and poetry, and
I don't have time for that.
I want to go and do all theseother great things, but at the
end of the day, it doesn'tmatter what your discipline is
going to be.
You're going to be faced with amoment where you have to
(02:40):
communicate that discipline tosomebody who doesn't speak your
technical language.
If you don't have the abilityto communicate, write and speak,
you're not going to be able todo that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Or to read critically and carefully.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
What Jim is saying.
We focus on skills, notnecessarily preparing for one
single career.
So we're focused on criticalthinking skills, analysis skills
which will be valuable in yourfuture career on time management
skills, on creativity, onemotional intelligence.
We focus on the skills thatthen can translate and transfer
(03:14):
into thousands of careers, notjust one career, and then you're
stuck there, potentially for 30years.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right, potentially for 30 years Right.
There are a whole lot of reallyfamous people who you don't
know about, who are Englishmajors, but also there's about
40 different fields where theEnglish major really does
prepare you for that, and moreand more we're looking to make
sure we point our students inthat direction.
What do you do as an Englishprofessor?
What is your job?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I suppose the easiest way to structure that answer is
to think about what they callfaculty workload allocation.
And so for someone who's aprofessor, your job is allocated
a certain percent teaching,research and service.
And so someone who's tenuretrack, approximately 60% of
their time in a year should bedevoted to teaching courses.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Tell us a little bit about what an English class is
like in Dr Ann Beebe's classes.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I can speak to literature because that's what I
teach.
Now you determine the topicright.
What do you want to teach?
How are you going to structurethat course?
You set the table is how I liketo think about it.
And here's the meal that'sbeing provided.
It's a meal that lasts anentire semester and these are
the texts we're going to read.
And here's how they build,here's how they speak to each
(04:28):
other.
There are thousands of booksand texts I can choose from.
Which ones want to have aconversation at this moment?
Which ones do I think forstudents right now are really
going to resonate?
So I set the table and then,for the most part, classes are
discussion.
I do what's called guideddiscussion, where I bring in a
series of questions.
You know I'm not a sportyperson, but it's sort of like a
(04:50):
tennis metaphor.
Just okay, here's a soft lobover the net.
Who wants it?
Who wants it?
Jim, you take this one, and sowe just start talking, start
playing and having thosediscussions.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So, jim, this is your opportunity.
What's it like to return one ofthe softballs from Dr Beebe's
tennis game?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Honestly, it's one of my favorite things about coming
back to school.
Being able to communicate withsomeone you know from a literary
standpoint and realize that I'mnot the biggest fish in the
pond at that point is reallygood, because I'm a big
proponent of if you're thesmartest person in the room,
you're in the wrong room.
So anytime I go into aclassroom environment I'm
(05:34):
looking to be challenged by myprofessor.
The way you present yourcurriculum.
I don't want to say that itforces a student to consider
things outside their wheelhouse,but you almost have to.
If you don't, usually you missthe whole point of the exercise.
And most of my analyticalskills began in one or two
(05:58):
classes.
It was Dr Beebe's class and itwas Dr Strong's class and then
later Dr Strong's class and thenlater Dr Kelly's class, because
they're all analysis based andthat's the big push for an
English degree is that itteaches you how to look at text,
how to consider media and thenanalyze the deeper meanings
behind that stuff.
That's a skill set that moststudents come into college not
(06:22):
having Ask questions and drawconnections see patterns.
Yes, always ask questions.
Never fail to ask a question,even if you think it's a dumb
question.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
There truly is no dumb question other than you
know what's my name, but part ofwhat we do is just also
teaching students to think abouthow they ask the right question
in order to elicit the ideasand generate the discussion that
they want.
Our department has three verydistinct and strong elements
(06:54):
Well, four, actually.
We have foreign languages.
On the English side, we have areally strong ret comp faculty,
and many of them also specializein digital writing and digital
storytelling and digitalanalysis.
We have a really strong and Jimcan speak to this as well
creative writing faculty membersin classes, and then we have
classes that are textualanalysis-based, that are
(07:15):
literature-based.
It's not book club, please,please, please.
It's not glorified book club.
It's looking at texts andanalyzing texts, the context
around them, the historical,biographical and so forth
context, and asking questionsabout how and why is an author
making these decisions?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So tell me, Jim, what is the work that you've most
enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Right now I'm taking a class with Dr Jessup in
Modernism, where we're readingHemingway and Stein and TS Eliot
, and when you're putting it inperspectives of why that
movement happened, then itchanges the whole timbre of what
you're reading.
You're looking at, you know, amovement that was brought on by
(07:59):
the Industrial Revolution andthe uncertainty of what was
going on at that time.
Well then you take that and youlook at what we're going
through right now with AI andthe digital revolution and
realize that it's same same Now.
It is every bit as relevant inthis moment as it was a hundred
odd years ago.
So that then becomes why thisis important, because it applies
(08:25):
back into the history of who weare.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, I too teach English.
I teach the Victorian periodand the Romantic period, and
when students just try to readthings cold, oftentimes they
miss so much, and so that's ourjob, isn't it, Dr Beebe?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
the layers and the context and not just give it to
them.
I don't lecture, I do guideddiscussions and I have a
checklist of things that I wantto draw out of them.
I want them to come to thatbecause you remember in class
what you contribute or what theperson sitting next to you
contributed.
You zone out after threeminutes in terms of the
professors telling youeverything.
It's all about the discussionand learning how to communicate
and contribute ideas in a groupwith real people, training
(09:07):
students how to discover thoseideas, make an argument and put
it in writing.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Maybe you could explain to folks what is digital
writing.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Digital writing focuses on different genres
texts that might be connected towebsites or connected to
different social media campaigns, or visual text, memes and and
gifs or gifs you guys can argueabout that later or webtoons or
blogs all forms of writing thatare transmitted primarily
(09:37):
digitally.
The digital storytelling minorfocuses more on the integration
of all those kinds of writingand how they are dependent upon
narrative and storytelling.
We have an article from agraduate I want to say 10 years
ago do you remember?
Megan Reyes Works inphilanthropy.
(09:57):
Philanthropy is for Englishmajors because it's all about
storytelling, learning how totell stories, connecting the
people who have money and wantto understand how that money is
going to be used, and you dothat by sharing the stories of
people who have benefited fromprevious donations.
That's all storytelling.
That's an English major jobright there who are doing jobs
in hundreds of different careers.
(10:18):
That is one where I wish moreEnglish majors and just people
in general and parents talkingto their kids would recognize
the value of learning how tocommunicate and tell stories and
make connections and if that'swhat you want your student to do
, push them towards English.
(10:39):
It is the most practical majorout there, looking ahead to the
21st century.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It is the most practical major out there
looking ahead to the 21stcentury.
Ashley, you have been involvedin communication.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
But she's also writing the technology minor
right.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Digital storytelling and interactive design.
I just switched over to it, soI'm very, very new to all of
this.
I was previously a graphicdesign minor, which I really
enjoyed, but one of the mainreasons I switched when I heard
that this was available isbecause my interests were always
.
They seemed across the board,but I found out what the
commonality was was thestorytelling aspect, what they
(11:13):
were trying to say.
Really, they look different,but they're all just these
various different mediums, theseexpressions of a story.
You know, a story is universal.
Everybody understands it, andthat's what I really loved is
what I found out.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
And so these are things that the English
department has started to expandinto because our culture has
changed.
You know, literature is notjust the old dead guys Chaucer
and Shakespeare and Milton, oreven Wordsworth or Thoreau, it's
the new guys.
I think it's important forpeople to understand that the
study of English is a muchbroader field now and really
(11:47):
very relevant to all the changesin the modern world today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It comes down to communication through whatever
means, cave paintings or writingin the sand.
The mediums change the desirefor human beings to communicate
and tell stories and shareconnections.
That doesn't change.
That's the heart of what we doin the Department of Literature
and Languages with foreignlanguages, digital writing,
(12:13):
creative writing and textualanalysis.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And every new novel or poem they read, they get a
chance to experience some otherhuman beings walk in this life
and to imagine how they mighthave responded to that.
Right now, when you think aboutthe job of being an English
student now you're finishing upwhat are some of the best advice
you can give to any students,but maybe specifically from the
(12:36):
standpoint of having been anEnglish student?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Well, when you first get here, brace yourself because
it's not high school anymore.
The responsibility is yours now, and in that that's where I
think a lot of students tend tofail is that they expect the
high school mentality of youknow, if you read this and you
recite that exactly, then you'regoing to get the A.
(12:59):
That's not the case, becausethat's not the point.
The point is to read something,inform your own opinions and
your own understanding and yourown analysis about that.
That's the point.
So once you get that understood, then it is about engagement.
It's about going beyond justwhat you get in the classroom.
(13:21):
Make friends with other people,make friends with your
professors.
Your professors are there tohelp you and I've not met a
single professor who is not opendoor policy, ready to help you
out at the drop of a hat.
Engage in other clubs, otherorganizations, things of this
nature, the writing center,volunteer the digital aspects of
(13:41):
it Go do that stuff of it.
Go do that stuff.
Having that mentality as astudent preps you for the world
that you're going to step intowhen you're no longer a student.
It's a dog-eat-dog world.
If you're going and you'recompeting for a job with
somebody, your job skill set iscritical.
If you have the ability tocritically analyze text and then
(14:05):
communicate that to somebodyelse, and the person next to you
has the same skill set of beinga doctor or being an accountant
or being whatever, doesn't havethat ability to communicate,
then you're leaps and boundsabove that person.
It's one of the arguments thatI make for making English if not
your major, then at leastconsider it as a minor.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I swear I didn't pay him to say this.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
No, well, no, this is this is you know big, burly oil
field guy coming in from thereal world and telling you that
out there hurts.
You need to have some skillsets that are going to prep you
for that, and the last thing youwant to be is what I was in my
late 40s swinging a hammer andiron.
You still have to have thesocial sciences.
(14:53):
You still have to have thehumanities.
It gives us our base.
It gives us our foundation.
Without that, we have nothingto build on.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Foundation for other majors and, in many cases, the
best foundation for careers,because, again, it's the skills
that you're talking about thatcan be, and need to be,
transferred to all thesedifferent careers, because the
job that we are hiring for rightnow is going to be different in
two years, is going to beunrecognizable in 10 years.
The career itself may be gone in20 years, and so focusing on
(15:25):
the skills that make you overallemployable in many different
careers is, just as you say, amore practical, a more flexible
approach to getting a collegedegree and getting that
foundation that will make yousecure that, no matter how the
economy changes, no matter whatyou want to do professionally,
you have the skills to succeed.
(15:46):
It's a wonderful enliveningenvironment, but this is a
semi-professional environment.
In some ways it's justhealthier to start to treat it
like a professional environmentand start to treat fellow
students as colleagues and startnetworking and start networking
and professors are not theirbosses but they are authority
(16:07):
figures and so to start tonavigate how you're going to
present yourself professionally.
And you've got, throughout yourcollege career, many different
opportunities.
You know 120 credits is thebaseline for a degree in the
state of Texas, so you have manydifferent opportunities to
start building your professionalbrand.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, and again, again, the students come back
with English degrees and they goout and they do so many
different things and they sayeverything I learned in English
I use in some other way.
I've got nursing students who,I mean, they went on to be
nurses but they were Englishminors or majors.
And one student recently toldme I am better than most of my
colleagues because I noticethings.
(16:47):
I learned how to look carefullyand to read people.
So it's a wonderful set ofskills, dr, and at those I'm
trying to talk with incomingstudents, who are sometimes
(17:10):
undecided and trying to persuadethem.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Here is why you need to minor.
In one of our programs we havethe English minor.
The number one complaintemployers often have is that
they're getting students whodon't have the communication
skills, the writing skills, thatthey need on day one.
So you become a double threat.
Have your wonderful degree inbiology, minor in English and
(17:33):
you become someone that from dayone is wait a minute, we need
to hire that person.
My biggest challenge,representing the department at
those orientations and fairs ismaking clear, not just to the
student but to their parents.
There are so many wonderfulmovies set on college campuses
with English professors or haveyou know images of English
(17:53):
classroom, but those are movies.
That is fiction, and sometimesthey don't quite understand.
That's not what we do.
You should not say to yourstudent no, you can't major in
English or minor in English,because it'll just be some
version of Animal House andyou're going to be a Starbucks
barista for the rest of yourlife.
(18:15):
All for baristas.
It's a wonderful skill and ifthat's what you want to do,
great.
But I have yet to meet one ofour alumni and I keep up with
him on LinkedIn and on varioussocial medias who now is a
full-time barista.
They've moved on to all thesewonderful careers that we didn't
even imagine.
There was no way we knew 40years ago about AI right.
(18:35):
We don't know what's going tobe happening in the marketplace
coming up.
Focus on the skills and makeyourself adaptable and build
that foundation so that you cantransition from career to career
, success to success.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We deal in stereotypes so often in fields,
and those stereotypes are justnot really real.
Just ask doctors and lawyerswhat they think about the way
doctors and lawyers areportrayed in film and television
.
Today, too, we really don'thave good ideas of what's going
on.
That's why we wanted to launchthis series is we want folks to
know what really goes on in theEnglish department, and later on
(19:09):
we're going to talk about thecommunications department and
history department and others aswell.
We are so grateful that you allwere willing to spend so much
time with us.
We've got the link to yournewsletter and we've got your
picture, and if anybody everwants to ask you questions, they
will send me the questions andwe'll send them off to you and
we will tell more of the storyof English major you.
So, as you all have probably figured out, one of the
goals of this podcast is toeducate folks about what goes on
at universities, and thecentral college in most
universities was the College ofArts and Sciences.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
For this series, we're going to be introducing
each of our wonderfuldepartments in the College of
Arts and Sciences by bringingyou a top professor in that
department and one of the topstudents as well.
We hope that this is veryhelpful to you as you're
choosing your major or justwanting to learn more about what
to expect from college life ingeneral.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy.
So here we are in the Ask DrRoss podcast.
Today, our guests are Dr AnnBeebe, who is the chair of the
Department of Literature andLanguages, and our soon-to-be
college graduate, jim Clayton,who is an English major.
But I'd like each of you totell us a little bit about
(00:56):
yourselves.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
So we'll start with you, dr Beebe the current chair
of the Department of Literatureand Languages.
I've been here 24, going on 25years.
I am an early Americanist,which means I teach literature
pre-1870.
I have a book out on EmilyDickinson and my Anne Bradstreet
(01:17):
book should be coming out thisyear.
I have been lucky enough toserve in many different roles,
including the PresidentialFellows Faculty Advisor.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Now, Jim, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
First off, I'm a 54-year-old undergrad senior.
My career previously was in theoil and gas industry.
I was a safety trainer overseasin the Middle East.
Then COVID happened and youknow, middle age is a little
difficult thing to go throughwhen you're dealing with the oil
and gas industry.
So rather than stay in that, Idecided to go back to school and
(01:47):
do what I really wanted to doin the first place.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So the big question is why?
From oil and gas to literatureand languages?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Well, literature and languages and writing was never
far from what I did.
I was the one guy on the oilwell site that was walking
around with, you know, a copy ofCount of Monte Cristo or
something like that, and someonewas always asking me why I'm so
weird.
But for me you're doing atransitional career.
You've gone from something verymanual, labor intensive.
You're looking for afoundational career, something
(02:19):
that you build on, and today'ssociety tends to kind of look at
English as a bunch of these andthousand prose and poetry, and
I don't have time for that.
I want to go and do all theseother great things, but at the
end of the day, it doesn'tmatter what your discipline is
going to be.
You're going to be faced with amoment where you have to
(02:40):
communicate that discipline tosomebody who doesn't speak your
technical language.
If you don't have the abilityto communicate, write and speak,
you're not going to be able todo that.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Or to read critically and carefully.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
What Jim is saying.
We focus on skills, notnecessarily preparing for one
single career.
So we're focused on criticalthinking skills, analysis skills
which will be valuable in yourfuture career on time management
skills, on creativity, onemotional intelligence.
We focus on the skills thatthen can translate and transfer
(03:14):
into thousands of careers, notjust one career, and then you're
stuck there, potentially for 30years.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Right, potentially for 30 years Right.
There are a whole lot of reallyfamous people who you don't
know about, who are Englishmajors, but also there's about
40 different fields where theEnglish major really does
prepare you for that, and moreand more we're looking to make
sure we point our students inthat direction.
What do you do as an Englishprofessor?
What is your job?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I suppose the easiest way to structure that answer is
to think about what they callfaculty workload allocation.
And so for someone who's aprofessor, your job is allocated
a certain percent teaching,research and service.
And so someone who's tenuretrack, approximately 60% of
their time in a year should bedevoted to teaching courses.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Tell us a little bit about what an English class is
like in Dr Ann Beebe's classes.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I can speak to literature because that's what I
teach.
Now you determine the topicright.
What do you want to teach?
How are you going to structurethat course?
You set the table is how I liketo think about it.
And here's the meal that'sbeing provided.
It's a meal that lasts anentire semester and these are
the texts we're going to read.
And here's how they build,here's how they speak to each
(04:28):
other.
There are thousands of booksand texts I can choose from.
Which ones want to have aconversation at this moment?
Which ones do I think forstudents right now are really
going to resonate?
So I set the table and then,for the most part, classes are
discussion.
I do what's called guideddiscussion, where I bring in a
series of questions.
You know I'm not a sportyperson, but it's sort of like a
(04:50):
tennis metaphor.
Just okay, here's a soft lobover the net.
Who wants it?
Who wants it?
Jim, you take this one, and sowe just start talking, start
playing and having thosediscussions.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So, jim, this is your opportunity.
What's it like to return one ofthe softballs from Dr Beebe's
tennis game?
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Honestly, it's one of my favorite things about coming
back to school.
Being able to communicate withsomeone you know from a literary
standpoint and realize that I'mnot the biggest fish in the
pond at that point is reallygood, because I'm a big
proponent of if you're thesmartest person in the room,
you're in the wrong room.
So anytime I go into aclassroom environment I'm
(05:34):
looking to be challenged by myprofessor.
The way you present yourcurriculum.
I don't want to say that itforces a student to consider
things outside their wheelhouse,but you almost have to.
If you don't, usually you missthe whole point of the exercise.
And most of my analyticalskills began in one or two
(05:58):
classes.
It was Dr Beebe's class and itwas Dr Strong's class and then
later Dr Strong's class and thenlater Dr Kelly's class, because
they're all analysis based andthat's the big push for an
English degree is that itteaches you how to look at text,
how to consider media and thenanalyze the deeper meanings
behind that stuff.
That's a skill set that moststudents come into college not
(06:22):
having Ask questions and drawconnections see patterns.
Yes, always ask questions.
Never fail to ask a question,even if you think it's a dumb
question.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
There truly is no dumb question other than you
know what's my name, but part ofwhat we do is just also
teaching students to think abouthow they ask the right question
in order to elicit the ideasand generate the discussion that
they want.
Our department has three verydistinct and strong elements
(06:54):
Well, four, actually.
We have foreign languages.
On the English side, we have areally strong ret comp faculty,
and many of them also specializein digital writing and digital
storytelling and digitalanalysis.
We have a really strong and Jimcan speak to this as well
creative writing faculty membersin classes, and then we have
classes that are textualanalysis-based, that are
(07:15):
literature-based.
It's not book club, please,please, please.
It's not glorified book club.
It's looking at texts andanalyzing texts, the context
around them, the historical,biographical and so forth
context, and asking questionsabout how and why is an author
making these decisions?
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So tell me, Jim, what is the work that you've most
enjoyed.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Right now I'm taking a class with Dr Jessup in
Modernism, where we're readingHemingway and Stein and TS Eliot
, and when you're putting it inperspectives of why that
movement happened, then itchanges the whole timbre of what
you're reading.
You're looking at, you know, amovement that was brought on by
(07:59):
the Industrial Revolution andthe uncertainty of what was
going on at that time.
Well then you take that and youlook at what we're going
through right now with AI andthe digital revolution and
realize that it's same same Now.
It is every bit as relevant inthis moment as it was a hundred
odd years ago.
So that then becomes why thisis important, because it applies
(08:25):
back into the history of who weare.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
You know, I too teach English.
I teach the Victorian periodand the Romantic period, and
when students just try to readthings cold, oftentimes they
miss so much, and so that's ourjob, isn't it, Dr Beebe?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
the layers and the context and not just give it to
them.
I don't lecture, I do guideddiscussions and I have a
checklist of things that I wantto draw out of them.
I want them to come to thatbecause you remember in class
what you contribute or what theperson sitting next to you
contributed.
You zone out after threeminutes in terms of the
professors telling youeverything.
It's all about the discussionand learning how to communicate
and contribute ideas in a groupwith real people, training
(09:07):
students how to discover thoseideas, make an argument and put
it in writing.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Maybe you could explain to folks what is digital
writing.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Digital writing focuses on different genres
texts that might be connected towebsites or connected to
different social media campaigns, or visual text, memes and and
gifs or gifs you guys can argueabout that later or webtoons or
blogs all forms of writing thatare transmitted primarily
(09:37):
digitally.
The digital storytelling minorfocuses more on the integration
of all those kinds of writingand how they are dependent upon
narrative and storytelling.
We have an article from agraduate I want to say 10 years
ago do you remember?
Megan Reyes Works inphilanthropy.
(09:57):
Philanthropy is for Englishmajors because it's all about
storytelling, learning how totell stories, connecting the
people who have money and wantto understand how that money is
going to be used, and you dothat by sharing the stories of
people who have benefited fromprevious donations.
That's all storytelling.
That's an English major jobright there who are doing jobs
in hundreds of different careers.
(10:18):
That is one where I wish moreEnglish majors and just people
in general and parents talkingto their kids would recognize
the value of learning how tocommunicate and tell stories and
make connections and if that'swhat you want your student to do
, push them towards English.
(10:39):
It is the most practical majorout there, looking ahead to the
21st century.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It is the most practical major out there
looking ahead to the 21stcentury.
Ashley, you have been involvedin communication.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
But she's also writing the technology minor
right.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Digital storytelling and interactive design.
I just switched over to it, soI'm very, very new to all of
this.
I was previously a graphicdesign minor, which I really
enjoyed, but one of the mainreasons I switched when I heard
that this was available isbecause my interests were always
.
They seemed across the board,but I found out what the
commonality was was thestorytelling aspect, what they
(11:13):
were trying to say.
Really, they look different,but they're all just these
various different mediums, theseexpressions of a story.
You know, a story is universal.
Everybody understands it, andthat's what I really loved is
what I found out.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
And so these are things that the English
department has started to expandinto because our culture has
changed.
You know, literature is notjust the old dead guys Chaucer
and Shakespeare and Milton, oreven Wordsworth or Thoreau, it's
the new guys.
I think it's important forpeople to understand that the
study of English is a muchbroader field now and really
(11:47):
very relevant to all the changesin the modern world today.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It comes down to communication through whatever
means, cave paintings or writingin the sand.
The mediums change the desirefor human beings to communicate
and tell stories and shareconnections.
That doesn't change.
That's the heart of what we doin the Department of Literature
and Languages with foreignlanguages, digital writing,
(12:13):
creative writing and textualanalysis.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And every new novel or poem they read, they get a
chance to experience some otherhuman beings walk in this life
and to imagine how they mighthave responded to that.
Right now, when you think aboutthe job of being an English
student now you're finishing upwhat are some of the best advice
you can give to any students,but maybe specifically from the
(12:36):
standpoint of having been anEnglish student?
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Well, when you first get here, brace yourself because
it's not high school anymore.
The responsibility is yours now, and in that that's where I
think a lot of students tend tofail is that they expect the
high school mentality of youknow, if you read this and you
recite that exactly, then you'regoing to get the A.
(12:59):
That's not the case, becausethat's not the point.
The point is to read something,inform your own opinions and
your own understanding and yourown analysis about that.
That's the point.
So once you get that understood, then it is about engagement.
It's about going beyond justwhat you get in the classroom.
(13:21):
Make friends with other people,make friends with your
professors.
Your professors are there tohelp you and I've not met a
single professor who is not opendoor policy, ready to help you
out at the drop of a hat.
Engage in other clubs, otherorganizations, things of this
nature, the writing center,volunteer the digital aspects of
(13:41):
it Go do that stuff of it.
Go do that stuff.
Having that mentality as astudent preps you for the world
that you're going to step intowhen you're no longer a student.
It's a dog-eat-dog world.
If you're going and you'recompeting for a job with
somebody, your job skill set iscritical.
If you have the ability tocritically analyze text and then
(14:05):
communicate that to somebodyelse, and the person next to you
has the same skill set of beinga doctor or being an accountant
or being whatever, doesn't havethat ability to communicate,
then you're leaps and boundsabove that person.
It's one of the arguments thatI make for making English if not
your major, then at leastconsider it as a minor.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I swear I didn't pay him to say this.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
No, well, no, this is this is you know big, burly oil
field guy coming in from thereal world and telling you that
out there hurts.
You need to have some skillsets that are going to prep you
for that, and the last thing youwant to be is what I was in my
late 40s swinging a hammer andiron.
You still have to have thesocial sciences.
(14:53):
You still have to have thehumanities.
It gives us our base.
It gives us our foundation.
Without that, we have nothingto build on.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Foundation for other majors and, in many cases, the
best foundation for careers,because, again, it's the skills
that you're talking about thatcan be, and need to be,
transferred to all thesedifferent careers, because the
job that we are hiring for rightnow is going to be different in
two years, is going to beunrecognizable in 10 years.
The career itself may be gone in20 years, and so focusing on
(15:25):
the skills that make you overallemployable in many different
careers is, just as you say, amore practical, a more flexible
approach to getting a collegedegree and getting that
foundation that will make yousecure that, no matter how the
economy changes, no matter whatyou want to do professionally,
you have the skills to succeed.
(15:46):
It's a wonderful enliveningenvironment, but this is a
semi-professional environment.
In some ways it's justhealthier to start to treat it
like a professional environmentand start to treat fellow
students as colleagues and startnetworking and start networking
and professors are not theirbosses but they are authority
(16:07):
figures and so to start tonavigate how you're going to
present yourself professionally.
And you've got, throughout yourcollege career, many different
opportunities.
You know 120 credits is thebaseline for a degree in the
state of Texas, so you have manydifferent opportunities to
start building your professionalbrand.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, and again, again, the students come back
with English degrees and they goout and they do so many
different things and they sayeverything I learned in English
I use in some other way.
I've got nursing students who,I mean, they went on to be
nurses but they were Englishminors or majors.
And one student recently toldme I am better than most of my
colleagues because I noticethings.
(16:47):
I learned how to look carefullyand to read people.
So it's a wonderful set ofskills, dr, and at those I'm
trying to talk with incomingstudents, who are sometimes
(17:10):
undecided and trying to persuadethem.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Here is why you need to minor.
In one of our programs we havethe English minor.
The number one complaintemployers often have is that
they're getting students whodon't have the communication
skills, the writing skills, thatthey need on day one.
So you become a double threat.
Have your wonderful degree inbiology, minor in English and
(17:33):
you become someone that from dayone is wait a minute, we need
to hire that person.
My biggest challenge,representing the department at
those orientations and fairs ismaking clear, not just to the
student but to their parents.
There are so many wonderfulmovies set on college campuses
with English professors or haveyou know images of English
(17:53):
classroom, but those are movies.
That is fiction, and sometimesthey don't quite understand.
That's not what we do.
You should not say to yourstudent no, you can't major in
English or minor in English,because it'll just be some
version of Animal House andyou're going to be a Starbucks
barista for the rest of yourlife.
(18:15):
All for baristas.
It's a wonderful skill and ifthat's what you want to do,
great.
But I have yet to meet one ofour alumni and I keep up with
him on LinkedIn and on varioussocial medias who now is a
full-time barista.
They've moved on to all thesewonderful careers that we didn't
even imagine.
There was no way we knew 40years ago about AI right.
(18:35):
We don't know what's going tobe happening in the marketplace
coming up.
Focus on the skills and makeyourself adaptable and build
that foundation so that you cantransition from career to career
, success to success.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We deal in stereotypes so often in fields,
and those stereotypes are justnot really real.
Just ask doctors and lawyerswhat they think about the way
doctors and lawyers areportrayed in film and television
.
Today, too, we really don'thave good ideas of what's going
on.
That's why we wanted to launchthis series is we want folks to
know what really goes on in theEnglish department, and later on
(19:09):
we're going to talk about thecommunications department and
history department and others aswell.
We are so grateful that you allwere willing to spend so much
time with us.
We've got the link to yournewsletter and we've got your
picture, and if anybody everwants to ask you questions, they
will send me the questions andwe'll send them off to you and
we will tell more of the storyof English major you.
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