People keep on saying this, but all the people I know who did proper English degrees are genuinely erudite. Perhaps because here you're expected to read your Chaucer and Beowulf in middle English at 'A' Level, so by the time you get to university, you're going to be reading the *really* difficult shit.
Nick always strikes me as one of those niggers who do a degree in communications studies or creative writing -- the kind of faux degrees they started handing out during the 1990's so even the thick kids could say that they'd been to college and had a degree as well.
Nick's creative writing degree at his school currently has the following required classes:
LIT 250 Critical Approaches to Literature
LIT 306 Craft and Theory: Prose and Poetry
LIT 370 Contemporary World Literature
LIT 310 Greek Mythology & Literature or LIT 423 Shakespeare
LIT 320 British Literature Survey: Beginnings to Present
LIT 330 American Literature Survey: Beginning to Contemporary
One of the following
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LIT 335 African American Literature
LIT 340 Sexuality and Gender in Literature
LIT 355 Native American Literature
LIT 375 Womens Literature
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ENG 495 Senior Capstone
ENG 207 Writers Workshop
ENG 301 Poetry Workshop
ENG 302 Fiction Workshop
ENG 401 Advanced Poetry Workshop or ENG 404 Advanced Fiction Workshop
One of the following:
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ENG 200 Student Publications
ENG 204 Introduction to Journalism
ENG 303 Screenwriting Workshop
ENG 410 Advanced Journalism
ENG 488 Techniques in Craft
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The degree and the required classes are entirely superficial. Most of the total classes offered by the department are specialty professional writing classes, writing workshops or classes centered around politics. The English department at the school seems to treat actual literature as a secondary concern.
I suspect most of the graduates of a program like this are going to either end up teaching children or in some specialized legal/medical/technical professional writing.
