My friend Shirly likes to remind me of the day she met me—sitting in the hallway of Sutherland, against the wall, on the verge of tears. I had a difficult first week of college. The registration process was complicated and nearly gave me ulcers. And when I finally did register for classes, I looked at my first semester schedule and realized that I didn’t want to be a Mass Communications-Journalism major after all. That’s where Shirly met me, waiting in line to become an English major, stressing over whether or not I was doing the right thing or not.
One of the things I’ve discovered in recent weeks is that I’m glad I’m an English major. My situation at Biola is unique. I feel like I have a foot in every department. For example, everyone at Biola must take 30 units of Bible—the equivalent of a minor in Biblical studies—in order to graduate. We have access to some of the greatest Christian thinkers and teachers of our time (including many from Talbot Seminary who teach at Biola as well).
At the same time, I’m finishing up my minor in Business, so I’ve had a wide range of professors from the Crowell School of Business at Biola, from accounting to administration to marketing to management information systems. Because I still want to pursue magazine writing, I’ve been working with the journalism department’s The Point Magazine as a writer, senior copy editor, and now managing editor. This semester, I’m taking a class they’re offering on Magazine and Freelance writing.
My varied interests (and 30-something AP credits) allow me the opportunity to interact with professors and students in Journalism, Business, Theology, and English, each with its own type of personality and atmosphere. Despite feeling a little schizophrenic now and then, I really enjoy stretching myself between these three or four departments at Biola. But now more than ever I’m thankful that I can call the English department home (figuratively, anyways).
Some of the journalism professors are too intense—too high energy and deadline oriented—for me. They're very good at what they do, but my tolerance for stress and pressure is too low for me survive as a full-fledged journalism student. I have liked a lot of my business professors and I think they’ve liked me. But the students in the Business department are not very personable. Or maybe I just get the sense that I’m something of an outsider amongst them, since I’m only a minor.
The English department, on the other hand, fits me like a glove. I love that our classes are small enough to discuss literature around a conference table. I love that the English students want to do everything from editing magazines to teaching English in the inner-city to writing captivating works of fiction. I love that we girls are good enough friends to nickname ourselves the LitWits, or that the boys don’t care if they’re the only male in their classes. And we aren't afraid to embrace our nerdiness.
I love the diversity of the English department—from the hyperactive, dramatic Shakespearean Dr. Kleist to the poet Professor Davidson. I love Dr. Van Zandt’s passion for American literature and Feminist literature, Dr. Smitht’s quiet Victorian brilliance, and Buck’s dry sarcasm and sense of irony. And I love that the professors in our department seem to know and like each other.
I love Kathy, our department secretary, who shares peanut M&M’s with us when we pass by her office. I love that our professors really know us, encourage us, and even invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They meet with us over coffee to talk about life in general, or let us harass them in their offices just for fun. I especially appreciate how laid-back they are in general.
Speaking of professors, one of the great joys of my semester is Dr. Malandra, an extremely tall, incredibly intelligent (think Cornell), and unexpectedly witty professor, who I have for Contemporary Literary Theory right now. He may be a soft-spoken, gentle giant with a strange interest in Asian (particularly Japanese) culture, but his wonderful awkwardness—and the lively banter of my classmates—makes a naturally dryer subject very entertaining, not to mention, bearable.
Ariel has decided that in honor of his greatness and our study of complicated philosophical and literary theories, we must name one after him. We have yet to lay down the terms of said theory, but we decided to name it, “Malandrian awkwardness.” I guess it doesn’t really matter what the theory is, he just deserves to have his own.
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