<p>Hi! I'm considering to declare an English major at Cal. </p>
<p>Are there any current/former Cal English majors that can tell me a little bit about their experience and how the classes/teachers are in terms of grades and workload?</p>
<p>Thank you so much in advance!</p>
<p>*bump 10char</p>
<p>English at Cal is pretty broad and allows a lot of flexibility. If you only take the required classes, you’ll get surveys in pre-1800, 19th century, and 20th century literature, although which works you read depends on the interests of the professor you take for each 45 series. Shakespeare is a requirement, as is at least one research seminar and a pre-1800 upper division class. Electives span a wide variety of genres and time periods and you can basically focus on whatever you want. If you want to broaden your writing experience, there are many workshop-type classes which you have to apply for and which focus on writing. Most other English classes are lit courses though in which you read a selection of novels or poems and write between 2-4 essays per semester, as well as a midterm or final in some classes.</p>
<p>As for grades and workloads, in my experience it seems like the overwhelming majority of English majors receive A’s and B’s in their classes. Probably because you really have to be deficient in writing to turn in a C paper, although I’m sure it happens. Workload depends on how fast/well you read and how efficient you are in writing papers. Some classes have staggering amounts of reading (I highly recommend Bernstein’s 125D - it’ll change your perspective on society and yourself if you allow Proust to get inside your head - which has nearly 4,000 pages of reading crammed into a scant twelve weeks) but most are easily manageable. It only gets really hectic when you have four papers all due in the same week (midterm and finals seasons).</p>
<p>Just as a note, the department is considered one of the best in the country because of the quality of the graduate students and faculty. Given that you will take classes from these professors and will be graded in all of the larger classes by GSIs or readers, you benefit from their expertise at least tangentially. However, with English as with anything else in life, the quality of your undergraduate education is entirely what you make of it. Every English major graduates with a pretty substantial body of literary knowledge since that’s what we do: we read and talk about what we read and write about what we read and what we talk about. It’s a good major to double with something else, because it requires so few classes to graduate. Also, because English by itself isn’t the most utilitarian major in the world. I say this not out of snobbery or disillusionment but because I’m in my last semester in the English program here at Cal, and I personally would have been a bit disappointed with my education had I not decided to pursue a simultaneous degree in Society & Environment.</p>
<p>I guess a lot depends on what you want to do after undergrad. Law school? English offers great breadth of knowledge. Med school? English offers great breadth of knowledge. Graduate school in literature? English offers perhaps the best breadth of knowledge. If you’re not planning to continue with school after undergrad though, or even if you’re not sure, then perhaps consider doubling English with another major, or major in something else and take select English courses which suit your specific interest.</p>
<p>^ What do you mean by it takes “so few classes to graduate”? I thought it was 12 required, which sounds like a lot though the dept page says we can get credit for related classes in other departments. Is it really that easy? (I’m a current first-year who’s suddenly considering English as a major, but haven’t taken any classes in the dept. yet.)</p>
<p>Well, twelve classes isn’t that many compared to a lot of other majors. But beyond just the number of courses required, perhaps what makes the major “easy” is that most English classes do not have prerequisites so you can take any of them in any order. This is immensely helpful when it comes to scrambling around come Phase I and II when a class you were planning to take may have already filled up.</p>
<p>Well, twelve sounds like a lot to me since most of my other perspective majors want about ten; that’s a good point, though. Thanks!</p>
<p>No problem. I guess I’m comparing to majors in CNR and COE which tend to have more required classes than those in L&S. If you’re only planning to do one major, you’ll have more than enough space to fulfill the twelve-course English requirement in eight semesters (not even two English classes per semester!). For this reason it’s a nice major to double with another.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you so much for the detailed reply, woolybugger51! It really helps 
and I’m glad to know that English majors have a lot of room for other courses in their schedules.</p>
<p>And thanks too, birdhouse-- I had some of the same thoughts!</p>
<p>Would you happen to believe that pre-med at Cal is a GPA killer like several of the CC-ers here believe? :/</p>