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31 Awesome Perks Of Being An English Major

As if being a bookworm is a bad thing?

1. You would never even DREAM of mixing these up.

2. You've already read the book that will launch every mediocre Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

3. Statistically, as a fiction reader, you'll demonstrate more empathy and social skills.

4. You knew the plot to this didn't just materialize out of thin air.

5. You get understandably mad when people say James Joyce was just doing this.

6. You can actually put together an email, unlike several people at your company.

7. Most people grimace when someone brings up "Infinite Jest," and you're just like:

8. And you believe that Kafka was actually, in fact, very funny.

9. Moving your library from apartment to apartment is a pain, but totally worth it.

10. You've developed an elaborate system of excuses for why you can't proofread your friend's paper.

11. You can rattle off the phallic symbols in Shakespeare as a cool party trick.

12. Meeting attractive people in bookstores is a whole other level of awesomeness.

13. You have/had a built-in alibi when your friends tried to drag you out partying.

14. You realize how awesome it is that the OED has an app.

15. You only have one reaction when your friend insists "Fifty Shades of Grey" is a good book:

16. Don't even get you started on postmodernism.

17. You don't start out making THAT much less than engineering and business majors.

18. You know the scariest thing in the world is having to limit a paper to 8-10 pages.

19. You consider authors sex symbols.

20. You have feverish opinions about which TV/film adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice" is best.

21. You know that majoring in English doesn't necessarily mean you have no idea what you want to do with your life.

22. Middle English and Ionic Greek? You know they're SO not useless.

23. You understand jokes about Foucault.

24. You have so many opinions about how amazing George Saunders is.

25. Guess who else majored in English? Several CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

26. You can appreciate a wide variety of religious texts without necessarily believing in any of them.

27. Sometimes you just want to give Thoreau a hug.

28. You know it's really not that hard. It's just not.

29. You're getting (or got!) excellent training for pretty much any kind of graduate school.

30. You can screen OK Cupid by who uses correct grammar in his or her profile.

31. In an increasingly digital world, you still appreciate the value of good old-fashioned paper.