I like words.

That may sound like a strange statement but it’s true. I like words. I like reading them. I like writing them. I like speaking them. I love how words often sound like their meaning. How certain ones flow off the tongue effortlessly and others are succinct little chirps. I love the differing number of syllables and how some are spelled phonetically and others have no rhyme or reason to their spelling whatsoever. I love silent letters and multiple meanings. But mostly I just love words.

I like them all, but I do have my favorites, the ones I use over and over again, the ones I probably use too often. There’s really no explaining why I love these particular words. They’re not the most difficult or the most eloquent sounding. They’re just my favorites. And if you know me in real life, or even if you frequently read my stuff here on CollegeCandy, you’ll know that these words are, in fact, a very big part of my everyday vernacular.

Ooh vernacular, now that’s a good word…

10. Legit. A shorthanded slang for legitimately. Often used by me for statements that are far from legitimate. But using the shortened version, “legit,” instead of “legitimately” makes the hyperbole okay somehow. At least for me.

9. Quip. A witty comeback. A short statement. I think I love using the word quip so much because I like to quip. A lot. So if I refer to other people’s comments as quips than maybe they’ll refer to my comments in the same way. Plus I like the alliteration of “quick quip.”

8. Simultaneously. A very, very pretty word that, let’s face it, sounds a hell of a lot more eloquent than “at the same time.”

7.  Quintessential. Not really a word you hear in everyday language, but I use it all the time. And probably more often than is appropriate. But I can’t help myself. It’s one of those words that just flows off the tongue. The “s” sound makes it sound so pretty.

6. Touché. This is a favorite of mine mostly because it allows you to still sound like you have the upper-hand even when admitting that your opponent actually has a point. Like, sure, you may have won the argument, but do you know how to bow out gracefully with words that require an accent? I do.

5. Repartee. More often than not when I used this word it’s preceded by the word witty. Because really, what’s the point of having a repartee if it’s not a witty repartee?

4. Pretentious. I’ve described more people than I care to admit using this word. It’s great because it allows you to sound important and intelligent and sure of yourself while making it sound like a bad thing when someone else behaves in the exact same way.

3. Adorable. Perfect for describing a puppy or a pair or shoes. Very few words are as adaptable as the word adorable. So make the most of it, why don’t you.

2. Absurd. A word my brother knows well. Mostly because it’s how I describe every one of his statements/actions/decisions since I was old enough to learn the word.

1. Fabulous.  Blame it on Carrie Bradshaw or Coco Chanel. Or whoever you please, but fabulous will pretty much always be my favorite word in the English dictionary. And you know why? Because it’s fabulous.

I know I’m not the only lover of language out there. What are your favorite words? 

But they’re also really, really annoying.

Because the over-analyzing and the hardcore literary theory and the pages upon pages of papers making a point no one even really cares about is all well and good when you’re spending your life in the world of academia, but when you’re outside of that world, what’s the point, really? Because I’ve been sitting in class these past few weeks listening to people deconstruct these novels I was never really all that into to begin with, and that’s all I’ve been asking myself. What is the point? I’m graduating in four months and I’m never going to think about this again.

For the first day of class, we had to read these New York Times articles, a collection of pieces called “Why Criticism Matters.” My favorite in the bunch was written by Sam Anderson, a New York Times Magazine critic, and a man who apparently fully embraces the art of Twitter. The piece discusses the fact that the rise of technology, the creation of the iPad, and the world’s obsession with social networking is not the end of literary theory or the end of literature. But it is changing the way people access their literature, providing readers with a vast array of options, and challenging writers to get the attention of readers.

And Anderson has taken up his own challenge. He writes with energy, writes with conviction, writes in a way that inspires my interest. His writing style is creative and entertaining, and he makes his point without, as he so eloquently puts it, “producing the kind of killing dull reviews that seem intended for someone trapped in a bus shelter during a rainstorm, circa 1953.” He writes the way he encourages others to write. He writes the way I wish to write. He writes in a way that makes me want to not only keep writing, but to write myself, which in my opinion is the mark of a great literary critic. And he’s also a hell of a lot more interesting than the rest of them too.

Anderson writes intelligently and creatively, and I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with wanting to be entertained by what I’m reading. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be entertaining while I’m writing. And really, I’m just wishing that more literary critics wrote that way.

Because I’m over it. Completely. I’m over the papers, the tests, and the discussions. I’m over the senior thesis that’s nowhere near complete, the notes that I will never touch again after I graduate. I’m over the quote identification midterms and the thematic essays and the reading logs. I want something useful, and entertaining, and real. Maybe it’s the senioritis talking, but I’m over it. I’m over the over analyzing.

And I’m really, really ready to graduate.

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Now to you this may not seem like a moment worth mentioning, but to me this is a monumental deal. You see, back when I was a freshman, fresh faced and eager, I did things like shopping for school supplies. I bought pens, and paper, highlighters and binders, and, most importantly, I bought post it notes. (I’m an organization freak. For my kind, it’s the little things like multi-colored sticky paper that make life worth living, okay?) But these weren’t just any notes. These were the super stack, a 12 pad pack of multicolored 4X4 sticky notes. I was sure they would last me all four years of college.

That was before I started working on my senior thesis.

Thesis projects require note taking. They require page marking. They require a lot of post its. I printed journal article after journal article, photocopied book after book, stuck notes in chapter after chapter. This summer I finished the blue pad. In the past month alone I went through the purple, and this past week I finished the hot pink pad. My post it notes are no more. Seven months before the end of my college career. (I’m a little heartbroken. Don’t judge.)

That alone would be enough to make me reconsider my commitment to this whole “senior thesis” thing, but I assure you I have plenty more reasons. I started this thing back in May. I picked a topic, and wrote out a proposal. Over the summer I started doing some light research, reread the novels I was working with, and marked the important passages.  It didn’t seem all that bad, but this past summer I didn’t have four other courses to worry about. Now I do. Needless to say, things have gotten a bit more complicated.

Working on a thesis warrants an independent study, which means that every few weeks I have to meet with my advisor to discuss my progress. I have to make outlines and write annotated bibliographies (the English major’s worst nightmare) and cut time out of my already overbooked schedule to keep up with my thesis work. My prospectus is due next Monday. My advisor wanted it a week early to look over. So as I sat there last weekend, sacrificing Fall Break time to write about Jane Austen, I started to wonder why exactly I was doing this. Yes, completion will get me departmental honors (and a pretty cord at graduation) and it will be a personal accomplishment that I will be proud of, but, really, will it do me any good after I graduate?

Are senior projects really worth it?

Departments require senior research projects, senior thesis papers, senior seminars, and projects of all kind for graduation. But are these projects, these courses, actually doing students any good? Yes, my scholarly writing will improve as I work on this, but what good will that do me when I’m looking for a job? It’s not like my resume needs citations or annotations or intense research. I’m dedicating an entire year to this project, and seniors at every college, in every major, are doing the same. And for what exactly?

Granted, there should be something to mark the fact that students have reached the height of their studies (I know, I know, that’s what Margarita Mondays are for), but is this the right approach? Would professors be better off sending their students out into the work place? Would it be wiser to require internships for the completion of a major? That option would at least allow students to observe the jobs they are likely to take on after graduation. It would be especially helpful for students without a definite career path, for students with majors that don’t immediately lead to viable career options (like this guy). Showing students their post college options before they reach that point may even help to clear up some of that post-grad craziness.

It’s certainly something to consider.

I love writing, but no one is going to pay me to write 30 page papers critiquing and over-analyzing my favorite novels for a job…are they?

…. Although, if you’re a hiring manager and you’re interested, drop me a comment. I charge per word.

Click here to follow Jenn’s other ups and downs of senior year.

Got some college questions? Unsure of a decision? Hate your roommate but still have to live with her again next year? Just wanna chat it up with some really awesome chics? We’ve got the girls for you. Hit them up in the comments or shoot them an email with the subject “College Q&A”! They’ve got all the answers you need, no matter who you are.

Question:
I’m a Junior and I still have no idea what major I want to do. I declared English just because I thought that made the most sense (and could potentially work for anything I want to do after college), but I just don’t know if that’s right for me. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up and I was hoping you guys might be able to give me some tips on how to figure that out. I’m really sick of reading literature and really don’t know if I want to continue on this path. Help?

GPA Girl:
If you’re sick of reading literature, you might want to consider changing your major. It doesn’t really sound as if you chose English for a good reason, anyway. You have a couple of options. Number one is to change your major to something that really interests you (music? art? astronomy?) and pursue that, even if it takes you a little more time than planned to get your bachelor’s. Option two is to keep going with the English major, finish it up for the sake of finishing, and do something entirely different after graduation. Why not? You wouldn’t be the first person to get a job (or do something else) that has nothing to do with your major.

It seems ridiculous to me that you are freaking out at the age of 20 or 21 because you have no idea what you want to do with your life. Relax! You have literally decades to figure it out. For right now, do what makes you happiest, whatever that may be. And if you don’t know, explore some different options by taking new classes and trying new extra-curriculars. That’s what college (and all those annoying required classes!) is for! Have fun!

Party Girl:
Giiiirl, I’m a (fifth year) senior and I’m still not sure what I want to do with my life. And all of my friends who graduated on time and are out there in the real world working and bringing home the bacon? Yeah, they don’t know what they want to do in life either. Yes, there are many people out there who know what they want to be when they grow up from the moment they enter college, but that’s not the case for the rest (or the most) of us. And that’s OK. What’s not OK is wasting all your time and money on a major that makes you miserable. You’ve got a long life ahead of you, so live it up now. Take a little time and think about what classes you’ve taken that you enjoyed the most. You’ll notice a trend and that trend should tell you what major you’d enjoy most (hell, that’s how I got into my happy place). Follow your heart and switch things up; you’ve only got 4 (or in my case/potentially your case if you change majors, 5)  years in college and you shouldn’t spend them dreading going to class. This is your time to learn and explore, so learn and explore! (And then save some time to hit the bar at night.) You don’t need to know what you want to do after college, you just need to know what you want to do right now. Focus on that and the rest will fall into place when it’s time.

Busy Bee:
I’ve learned that the best way to figure out what you want to do “when you grow up” is to explore. Take a week (maybe the week of Spring Break? Or some time this summer?) to dedicate towards answering this question. Volunteer with different organizations, take up a new hobby, read your old diary entries, read a book, take personality tests, research unique jobs (911 phone operator, anybody?), or call up your old teachers to see what they think. By trying out different things, reading up on your past, and talking to people who have seen you hard at work, you may realize that there is a common trait that you’ve involved yourself with. Maybe when you were four years old, you were obsessed with airplanes and now you discover that you want to become a pilot. Who knows?!

Remember, you want to be sure that whatever career path you choose to embark on, that you can imagine yourself waking up every morning excited to go to work. Realize that you will become an expert in your career, so what is it that makes you excited? What topics make your heart race? What field of study makes you want to study a little harder? I know these questions aren’t easy to answer, but then again, you are a junior. The clock is ticking and if you want to change your major, you have to do it ASAP in order to avoid staying in college longer than necessary. Who knows, you might go back to English, or maybe not. Either way, I don’t think you’ve wasted any time with an English major! So take what you’ve learned and improvise on it. Trust me, there is something out there for you – you just have to find it.

Of course, having a Bachelors doesn’t really do anything anymore. I’ve heard about a ton about people who have their Bachelors and are working at a Domino’s or something. Getting a Masters seems like the next logical step, for students and apparently their parents. So is it such a bad thing that I really don’t want to go?

Being around a ton of people who are all talking about getting recommendations and narrowing down their grad school list makes me realize more and more that grad school really isn’t for me. My mom’s look of horror when I told her this one day this summer is the only thing I see when I talk about wanting to go into vet tech after I get out of school. Issue is, as an English major, I’m mildly suffering with what-do-I-do- with-this-diploma? syndrome. Publishing and editing are options, sure, but I don’t want to deal with that crap. It seems that some people assume that because a field has something to do with your major, you will inevitably want to be a part of that field.

And of course, there’s that inevitable money issue breathing down the necks of graduates. Do you stay in school for another two years so you don’t have to pay off loans just yet? Everyone seems to sort of just assume that jobs are lining up to grab college grads, but with the economy the way it is, I’m thinking that this is somehow far from the case. More and more of my senior class seems to be regretting their major because there’s nothing they can do with it to get money. What ever happened to going to college to just learn?

I’ve never been too good at thinking about my future, anyway. Most people need to schedule, but I just work on the fly, and that’s not the easiest thing to do when everyone is shoving grids and boxes with terrifying numbers like “2010” on them (weren’t the 90’s just like a year or two ago?) in your face. Though I should probably start looking into vet tech stuff now – so, if anything, I feel less out of place when people say, “So what are you going to do after you graduate?” – work wise, I’m not really gonna look into that until after I graduate.

Future aside, it kind of surprises me that I only have about five full weeks of class left. Didn’t the semester just f**king start? Why haven’t I gotten drunk yet? How have I slept through three of my morning classes so far? Why does that one freshman keep flirting with me when I’m pretty sure he’s still jailbait? I’m not sure how well I can handle the fact that most of the freshmen were born in 1990 or later. That was only about ten years ago, right? …right?

Damn, am I ever out of touch with time.

This weekend I met a guy. He is cute, funny, and 6’1″ – we exchanged numbers, and things were looking good.

Then at the end of the night as I was falling asleep, my phone chirped to inform me of a new text, from my new guy, “Great 2 meet u.”

Damn. And he had so much potential.

I know, I know, it is a sweet thing to say, but my problem is not with what he said, its how. I am the first to admit that I being extremely judgmental, but as an English major and someone who thoroughly enjoys words, I really hate to see them butchered.

Yeah, I’ve had people rationalize this texting style as faster, easier, whatever, but to substitute a single letter or a number for a word completely peeves me. Every time I see ‘4‘ in place of the word ‘for‘ or ‘c‘ instead of ‘see‘ or ‘2morrow‘ where there should be a ‘tomorrow‘ I cringe, I think of a junior high student, IQ points are lost, and a person suddenly seems extremely lazy- is it really that much harder to just type the extra two or three letters?? (The answer is no.)

Since my love life has been a little MIA lately, and aside from his bad text – etiquette I really thought he was a great guy I am not going to write him off (get it, write him off… since he doesn’t spell words right?) for lazy spelling. I’ll give him a shot, but I am just wondering, exactly how long do I have to wait before I can ask him to please expel the extra effort and use complete words?

I thought it would be fun to have a change of scenery for a semester, but I had heard many a tale of study-abroad-gone-useless: “I never went to class, I just got drunk all the time”. “I only hung out with other Americans”. “We lived with other English speakers, so we never even bothered to work on our French”.

So I decided to skip the whole semester abroad experience and go all out–after graduation, I’d go to grad school in another country.

I applied to a few universities, one in Dublin, Ireland, two in London, and one south of London in the seaside town of Brighton. Because of rolling admissions, I heard back from the three UK schools almost immediately–accepted! Yes! Having never been to England, however, I wondered how I could possibly choose. So…I flew to London. For the weekend. In a jet lag-induced haze, I wandered the city, taking photos, visiting campuses. I took a train to Brighton and tried to imagine myself at school there. I made my choice. I bought a London guidebook.

On graduation day, I got another letter in the mail. It was from Ireland, and informed me that I had been accepted to the school in Dublin. My well-laid plans were suddenly de-railed–the masters program in Dublin was exactly what I wanted, and the school had a bit more prestige. At the advice of friends, professors, parents, strangers, whoever…I changed my mind.

I moved to Ireland in the Fall.

When I arrived at Dublin airport on a sunny day in late September, my entire life packed in two suitcases, it was the first time I had ever set foot in Ireland. I knew no one, and my program wasn’t supposed to begin for another few weeks. I was entirely alone…

[I'll be chronicling some of the best and worst experiences here, so stay tuned!]