My college degree is in English, and with that degree there comes a whole bunch of assumptions. The first one is that I'm unemployed and living in a box. It's true that English majors usually don't work in the field-because journalism has died and teaching isn't for everyone. There isn't much left and I see many of my friends who majored in English working in other fields that don't use the skills acquired while getting that degree. Luckily for me, being an international sex symbol pays the bills. I'll be on the cover of GQ next month.
The next most irritating thing you can do is rattle off your favorite obscure author that no one other than yourself has heard of than insult my college education after I tell you I've never heard of them. Oddly, when I meet an art major I don't try to stump them on obscure painters. When I meet a business major I don't try and rattle off economic theories that they may not know of. Next time I meet a history major I'm going to ask them their thoughts on the Battle of Worcester and than imply that they wasted four years if they don't know who the generals were for both sides. In other words, just because I haven't heard of a certain author doesn't mean my degree was useless.
The final thing you can do is assume we are all grammar Nazis. There is a lot of truth in this one though. I'm one of the rare English majors who is not a grammar Nazi, nor have I ever been one. The sad part about grammar Nazis is that yes, they too make grammar mistakes but they hold everyone else to a foolishly high standard. They seem to think that if you make one mistake in grammar you are automatically a dumbass. Sometimes I make grammar mistakes and misspell words just to tell them I'm still thinking of them.
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