I get it; you’re all better than me. There’s no need to sugar-coat it anymore.

I’m looking at you, culinary majors. You’re just the icing on the cake.

Yes, I have a useless major. “Creative Writing?” What the hell does that even mean?!

Let me explain: throughout my childhood, everyone told me to go to college to get a good education and —as a result of that— a good job. Now that I am in college (of which I am currently in my fourth year), all of that advice from my adolescence (of which I am currently in my second year) doesn’t amount to a pile of garbage.

This isn’t to say that college is useless. Far from it, as a matter of fact. Higher education is essential to a successful career, especially if you are planning on going into lucrative fields, such as engineering, biomedical sciences and philosophy. At one point, I was even planning to become an engineer, until I realized that it wasn’t entirely about building models out of Legos.

But writing? Most of the world’s greatest writers never went through college (Twain, Wordsworth, [Eric] Carle), and they turned out alright. Maybe one or two sank into a deep alcoholic depression and killed themselves, but I doubt that it had anything to do with missing out on the college experience.

Am I comparing myself to the literary greats? Yes.

Is that conceited? Maybe to you trivial peons.

When I say that I’m a Creative Writing major, I get the same look I got when I was an undeclared freshman: pity, with a hint of arrogance. It also inevitably evokes the following question: “So, you want to do journalism?”

No, idiot, because that would require a journalism degree. That’s like asking a criminal justice major, “So, you want to do crime?”

I believe the reason they ask this question is because — out of the hundred of possible career options that writing could entail — journalism is the most respectable. Unfortunately, I do not possess the proper interviewing or seriousness skills needed to become a successful journalist.

Also, I use the word “dude” too much.

So no, general public, I will not be a journalist. Please feel free to treat me as if I have some terminal disease because the truth is that I don’t really know what I want to do with this degree; it was simply the only major I felt I could pass without losing my flipping mind.

And now that I’ve seen my reading list for this semester’s classes, I’m even convinced that Creative Writing does not bode well for my forthcoming sanity.

Trust me, I get it; you’re all better than me. While the rest of society is out earning an abhorrent amount of money, I’ll be busy living on one of my rich friends’ couches, surfing the Web instead of focusing and doing any actual work.

Is that respectable? No. But it’s all I know. History major dudes can back me up here.cslattery@lanthorn.com