OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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An English degree is about more than the book. English majors learn to see complex problems in their full richness and don’t take the first answer, or the simplest answer, as truth. In our courses, numerous kinds of texts – from medieval poems to postmodern novels, adapted screenplays to literary criticism itself – appear as windows into the cultures and conditions in which they were produced. English majors develop habits of mind attuned to the reasons why people do what they do and write what they write. Our majors are engaged, empathetic people pursuing a creative, critical, and useful degree.
The English major includes an array of subjects ranging in literary history to film and visual culture, creative and nonfiction writing, rhetoric and literacy, and the digital humanities. We focus on the big picture and the details: close reading skills and critical analysis, how literacy and language change over time, and how social and historical movements are represented in texts. Reading, writing, active listening, discussing, presenting, and debating are foundational activities in our classrooms. Your first courses in the major will introduce you to important writing, reading, and research tools for carrying out sophisticated analyses of literary texts. Some upper-division classes will sharpen these skills, calling upon you to investigate specific authors, historical moments, themes, and theories in longer essays. Other "project-based" classes will ask you to consider new, creative ways of representing literary knowledge in forms well beyond the research paper.
Most English classes are held in Moreland Hall – a historic building in the heart of campus directly across the street from the Memorial Union. There, you'll find classrooms, faculty offices, and a set of cozy gathering spaces including our Smith Media Lab for video projects, podcasts, and other creative endeavors and our Letterpress room for creative printing.
Faculty in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film are a prolific and distinguished group of scholars, teachers, and creative writers. They not only publish books at top university presses and creative publishing houses. In keeping with the land-grant mission of Oregon State, they also write for popular venues such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, and Wired. They've also started new podcasts, served as expert commentators for venues such as the New Yorker, published open-source literary projects, arranged international musical collaborations, coordinated creative responses to world events, and even appeared on Jeopardy! For their scholarly and creative work, they have received Oregon and Connecticut Book Awards, Fulbright Awards, and even a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Photo Society. Our faculty mentors therefore bring a wealth of experience to their award-winning teaching, providing SWLF students with a rigorous liberal arts education at a Tier 1 Research University.
SWLF is home to the undergraduate Creative Writing Society, a friendly organization aimed at creating a community of writers from all backgrounds, genres, and majors. SWLF also hosts three lecture series – the Visiting Writers Series, the Literary Northwest Series, and the Critical Questions Series – that bring renowned visitors to campus. The Stone Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, the largest prize given to a writer by a university in the west, has been awarded to Joyce Carol Oates, Tobias Wolff, Rita Dove, Colson Whitehead, and, in 2021, Lynda Barry. Courses center around the work of the Stone Award recipient, who also visits OSU to deliver public readings and to meet with students. SWLF students may also be interested in a lecture series hosted by the Office of the Provost, which has brought to campus an internationally-acclaimed collection of authors, journalists, and literary scholars including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Cheryl Strayed, Ibram X. Kendi, and Michael Pollan.
In today’s highly competitive job market, adding a professional internship experience to one’s degree is attractive to potential employers who often are seeking job candidates with a more versatile and “seasoned” background. While the vast majority of internships are unpaid, the value of an internship experience is significant. The knowledge and experience attained and the internship’s notation on a resume may make the difference in landing a particular job. In recent years, English majors and Writing minors have interned with a wide variety of sponsors: OSU Marketing and Web Communications, OSU Press, INTO OSU, Nike, the Seattle Mariners, King 5 TV in Seattle, Calyx Books in Corvallis and Portland Monthly, to name a few.
Students in our Fall 2022 ENG 340 "Literature of the Coast" course visit the Hatfield Visitor Center to learn about scientific storytelling in museums.
The School of Writing, Literature, and Film guarantees that students can earn a BA in English in four years. Thanks in part to this guarantee, our School graduated 52 talented undergraduate majors for the 2021-22 academic year. The four-year graduation guarantee ensures that our students know how they’re progressing through their degree, what courses they can take, and what opportunities are available.
Brandt Bridges (2022) has been awarded a Fulbright-García Robles English Teaching Fellowship for work in Mexico (2023-24).
Graduates from our BA in English go on to exciting careers in a range of different fields:
Garrett Kitamura (2018): J.D. Candidate at University of Virginia Law
Ethan Heusser (2018): M.F.A. in Poetry Candidate at the University of Iowa
Justin Bennett (2019): J.D. Candidate at Georgetown Law
Samarra Watson (2021): Recruiting Coordinator at Amazon
Precious Norris (2022): M.A. in English Candidate at Oregon State
Jess Linde-Goodfellow (2022): English Teacher in Algimia d'Alfara, Spain
(Total Credit Hours: 54)
ENG 301 Ways of Reading
ENG 302 Writing About Literature
ENG 304 Career Prep for English Majors
ENG 345 Intro to Literary Criticism and Theory
Select one additional 4-credit 300-level ENG, FILM, or WR course
(Note: For students who declared English BEFORE Fall 2021, please go to the following link for the older course of study).
Learn more about the beautiful city of Corvallis, OR and the surrounding environs in this short video.
Please contact Liddy Detar for more information on our English Majors and Minors. We look forward to seeing you in Moreland Hall soon!
