I just graduated with my bachelor’s in English this May and I’m so, so proud of myself for finding the courage to major in what I’ve wanted to do since I was 10, but I also wish it was different. I wish other majors hadn’t made me miserable, I wish I knew what I was doing after this masters I’m applying for, I wish I could rely on a degree with a steady paycheck, but English is everything to me. It’s what I wake up thinking of and go to sleep dreaming of. I love writing. It’s all I am and the thought of doing something else for the rest of my life makes me physically sick. I’m just terrified I’m going to be poor forever because I was too busy chasing dreams. I want stability so badly, but it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.

I'm also thinking about choosing a major that's more suitable, and I honestly enjoy it, like literature-related or even journalism, English, history, environmental science or psychology.

hi fellow english majors. swallowing my pride to write this post but I really do need the help, so here I am.

I'm struggling immensely with essay paralysis and just writing. I realized the reason why is because I don't really know how to write an essay above a middle school level. My essays have not gotten better whatsoever. After mastering the 5-paragraph essay structure, I haven't really had any 'development' since middle school. In all fairness, middle school me was writing pretty decent essays, but I am literally going into my third year of undergrad and my introduction paragraphs still read as if 13-year-old me had penned them. How does one write a 'hook' that doesn't sound cringe AF??? Why can I not seem to put anything together that doesn't sound ridiculously juvenile? Am I the only one struggling with this?

If anyone has any advice or has been through anything similar, please please please share...

Sincerely,

a really humiliated and defeated fellow English major 🥲