Opinion: Where can passion lead? Ask an English major-turned biology grad student-turned science writer

To the editor: I continued to wait tables after completing my English degree with honors in 1979, while experiencing goals that included travel and triathlons. My first “career” was in the medical field selling hospital products. (“Study English Lit to acquire ‘marketable’ skills? That’s a bad argument,” Opinion, Oct. 22)

I often affirmed the rationale of which Rohan Maitzen writes: An English degree is excellent preparation for sundry career paths because it is an immersion in critical thinking, in presenting one’s argument in a winning way. Maitzen argues that such is not why one should study English literature.

I later completed a second degree, in biology, at UC Riverside, where I was a science writer for two colleges. My early academic pursuits would not have predicted such a varied path.

I studied English at UC Santa Barbara because reading and writing were my passion. I have done well not despite or because of an English degree. I followed my heart.

Jana Shaker, Riverside

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To the editor: Professor Rohan Maitzen’s defense of the English major neglects the larger issue: College was not always looked upon as a means to an end, but rather as an invaluable rite of passage that imparts lifelong skills.

Making decisions. Meeting deadlines. Working alongside and relating to people of different races and ethnicities. Identifying and focusing on a goal. Communicating, both orally and in writing. And especially the skill — and the high — of overcoming doubt and difficulty one class, one quarter at a time, for four years.

Your assigned roommate might be majoring in evolutionary medicine, or labor and workplace studies, or philosophy, exposing you to new ideas. It’s a heady, mind-expanding, rich time.

Every employer values the skills that a college graduate brings, especially the key one: the willingness and tenacity to learn.

Eileen Flaxman, Claremont

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