As SUB’s treasurer for the year 2010, I participated in the course HYY was kind enough to organise for us newbies to the world of money. What I learned was that being a treasurer in a student organisation might not actually be as difficult as it is often seen by us humanists. Of course, I have yet to experience the hard work this job includes, and this is only my first impression. The future will tell whether being a treasurer is my kind of thing or not. I do remember liking, and being good at, financial mathematics at school, but in reality it is rather scary to be in charge of as much money as a relatively large student organisation such as SUB has.

Another thing I learned at the course was that, apparently, I look like an English major. I was quite taken aback, as well as surprised, by the comment made by a student of Asian and African studies; a fellow humanist and a linguist. Still I can’t help wondering what an earth does an English major look like.. Is it someone with piercings, loud voice, and too much to say? Or someone who makes a spectacle of themselves? Maybe the stereotypical English major is a twenty-something girl with a ciffon scarf, and a red skirt to go with it? Perhaps it is someone who likes hip hop, too big pants, and wears extravagant make up? Or a Monty Python fanatic with idiotic jokes only a fraction of people get?

I took the liberty of sharing the anecdote with two fellow freshmen who both said they’d also been labelled as English majors only by their appearance and character. From a freshman’s point of view the world of English majors is full of unique people. It is, however, true that most English majors I have met during this first year of studying English at the University have been open-minded, more or less loud, blunt, straight-forward, social, and just plain nice. We don’t all like heavy metal, most of us don’t have any radical piercings or tattoos, we most certainly don’t all like Monty Python, some of us like American English and some prefer English English over other varieties. Some of us are participating in organisational activities, others just go to lectures and then study at home or at Alexandria without much interest in SUB.

In conclusion, I don’t think there is much common with us English majors apart from the fact that we do all share a certain interest in the English language. (And don’t you agree that it would be incredibly boring to have a solid red mass of SUBbers wandering the halls of Metsätalo?)

After all, you are unique – just like everyone else.

[tags]sub, subliminal messages, english, brands[/sub]