You double major in linguistics and English literature..
Alas, none of your linguistics classmates take your English Literature major very seriously. They seem to snicker about you behind your back. They make derisive comments to your face about how “artsy fartsy” you are. On the other hand, your artsy fartsy English Lit friends think your interest in linguistics is cool. They like you just the way you are.
You do well enough in your linguistics classes, but your heart isn’t in it. After graduation, you decide to continue with Literature and abandon linguistics. It takes another eight years and $200,000 in student loans, but you finally get a Master’s and a Ph.D. in World Literature Studies from an Ivy League university. You are recognized by many in the field as an expert in Medieval French and English Literature, and you have published scholarly articles on Alliterative Allusions in Beowulf, Francophonic Motifs in Chaucer, and The Symmetrical Imagery of Charles Baudelaire and Robert Frost. Your own creative writing has been a success, and you have several poems published in well-known poetry quarterlies and several short stories anthologized in books published by well-regarded independent presses.
You have achieved all that you set out to do in your field. And now, from the pinnacle of English Literaturedom, as you look back, your view of linguistics has softened. You find that you can fondly recall the positive influence of your Historical Linguistics class and that you can admit that your linguistics training may have helped in some small way in getting you where you are today.
Finally, you take on the traditional work of English Lit Superstars, in order to pay some of the interest rapidly accumulating on your student loans.
Start your new job.
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