I need some advice. I’m planning on seeing a counselor, but I wanted to see what students/people around my age would advise.
I’m currently attending a CC in California, and I’m finishing up my second semester. So far I’ve taken 35 units (7 of which are from classes taken during high school, but still of course on my college transcript). All of these units transfer to CSU/UC and/or fulfill the IGETC transfer pattern for those schools. My plan is to transfer after next spring (Fall 2018), but my dilemma is that I don’t know what to major in, or what major to transfer as. All I know for certain is that I don’t want to spend more than 2 years here.
Originally, I had it all figured out. I was going to major in English, and transfer as one, probably to UC Davis as a TAG school. With an English degree I was planning to pursue a career in the publishing industry, and maybe even write fictional works of my own or blog-type articles. I wanted to keep an open mind, and I figured that an English degree would allow for that in terms of options.
I say all this in past tense because I have encountered that, despite my love of reading, I absolutely despise the English composition class I’m taking, which happens to be my first college English class. I’m a bit ashamed to admit this, but this class - even though it’s at the CC level - is kicking my ass. This could be due to a number of things:
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I’m not a fan of the professor. She comes across to me as dry and lacking the passion of the English teachers I’ve come across, though my previous experience is limited to high school teachers and the professor I had for a creative writing class (taken during high school). She’s not severely standoffish or anything, but for some reason I find her hard to approach. I would even say she scares me a bit. (During a class discussion of rough draft thesis statements, she called my thesis “word vomit.” Apparently it was too wordy). However, for all I know, most college professors could be like this.
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It’s an Honors course, so the expectations are naturally higher. I knew this going in, of course, but I also thought it would be no problem because it’s still a CC class, and I figured my English writing skills were pretty good. And, since I was majoring in English, it seemed like a no-brainer to take the Honors equivalent of the required English composition course in IGETC. You can safely assume that at this point, my confidence in my writing skills has significantly diminished.
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The readings are all nonfiction, and while I like reading creative nonfiction, all but (maybe) one of the readings for this class were NOT creative in the way creative non fiction is, but are more like long essays. Reading about 40-80 pages for homework, you can also safely assume I despise nonfiction that I have very little initial interest in reading.
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The most stressful thing, however, is that I have no idea what my grade is until the very last day when we meet individually with the professor and discuss our portfolio, which is basically everything we’ve written for the class, and this portfolio is half our grade (the other half is participation, peer review work and in-class writing). Since, of course, grades at the CC level are important, the level of uncertainty in this class is overwhelming. And I HATE uncertainty when it comes to my grades, probably to a fault. But, as an English major, wouldn’t it make sense to want an A in this class?
I recognize that all or none of these issues I’ve experienced could be present in 4-year university English courses. But because this is my least favorite class out of all the classes I’ve taken so far (except for maybe Stats) I’m questioning whether I should even major in English. Problem is, I’m running out of time. I know I want to pursue a humanities major, as I can definitely say I’m not a STEM gal, but I’m just not sure if English is right for me if classes like this one comprise 4-year university English programs. Hell, I was strongly considering UCB, but if I’m struggling to get an A in a CC English class, how can I expect to get in, let alone succeed there?
Yes, I know I shouldn’t just give up on English because of one bad English class, but I also don’t want to go into something I really don’t like. I’m aware that UC Davis’s English major has a creative writing concentration, but I’m also wary of the UCs because of all the pretty negative things I’ve heard about the system in general, particularly how it cares more about churning out as many graduates as possible without giving much thought to individual student needs/well-being.
I don’t know whether I should keep going with English, or choose something else. The only thing I know I absolutely love doing is reading, but obviously I can’t make a career out of reading books, at least not without some significant experience. And even if I decide to go with English, is Davis a good idea? Davis is the closest to me out of all the UCs location-wise, so I’m already familiar with it more so than other UCs, except for UCB, since my dad transferred there back in the 80s. But, like I said earlier, I think it’s safe to say UCB is out of reach if I’m struggling with a CC-level class.
Any advice is appreciated, and thanks in advance for taking time to read through this essay (ha).