100 Degrees For One Degree

I think I was always destined to be an English major. Because I've always been monumentally annoyed when people mispronounce or misspell things. I lived in a foreign country (Louisiana) for a few years in elementary school and almost had a nervous breakdown at age 7 because people referred to a desk as a "dex" and the spelling bee was only six minutes long. So it's always been important for me to correct people's grammar and spelling.

So let's fast forward about 14 years to college. After three years of "studying," I only had 60 credit hours to my name. Or in other words, I'd completed roughly two years worth of college in just three years. And that's right on pace for a six-year degree. The problem at the time was that my university requires students to declare a major once they've hit 60 credit hours. And after three years of college, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. (Ambition is obviously not one of my strengths.) So since Texas A&M University doesn't give out degrees in General Studies, I had to pick a major that would accept my solid 2.01 grade point average.

I decided my best bet was somewhere in the College of Liberal Arts, so I headed down to their office in August a few weeks before school started. I looked at the requirements and possible jobs available for each major. And since I only had a few strengths in a couple of areas, I narrowed it down to Political Science (what I still call Social Studies) and English. And I couldn't really decide which one I wanted to do. So I read further down and realized that to declare Political Science I'd have to walk about half a mile across campus in the Texas August heat to their main building. But to declare English, I just had to walk down a flight of stairs to their air-conditioned office on the second floor.

You already know I picked English, but now you know why. Me + walking in the Texas summer sun = profuse sweating and possible collapse. But I'd rather be a lazy English major than a sweaty Political Science major any day.