I’m a fervent believer that literature reifies the essence of life. To me, regardless of the form it assumes or the place from which it hails, literature of all kind is invaluable. Comp Lit transcends discipline, geography, nationality, culture, and language, yielding the most extraordinary and holistic academic experience in the literary domain and beyond. The major magnificently enhances your breadth of study. It is complementary to any and all other curriculums no matter how divergent they may initially appear, though I’ve come to find its utility is supremely underrated.

As an underclassman, I was taking one Comp Lit class after another until friends finally asked why the heck I wasn’t majoring in it. Their inquiry promptly made me ask myself that same question because clearly I loved it - not only for its inherent worth, but for the intimate community of faculty and fellow impassioned peers, as well as the academic versatility, flexibility, and opportunity it offered. I was reluctant to pursue it more seriously at first because anyone I ever mentioned my studies to felt the urgent need to not just ask where, when, and how I was going to get a job, but immediately conclude that such a thing was next to nonexistent in the arts and literary fields. That is wildly untrue. Comp Lit is integral to academia, to the workforce, to identities, to life.

I paired my Comp Lit major with a Management degree from the Isenberg School of Management, and was primarily able to do so because both majors and minors in Comp Lit are so adaptable. My literary experience, exposure, and core passion brought a lot to the table for me in my business studies. With enhanced reading, writing, and analytical skills, as well as a genuinely more comprehensive understanding of the world, its history, and how we humans operate within it, I was able to more seamlessly bridge the polarized worlds of arts and business to realize their married value.

I wouldn’t relinquish Comp Lit for the world! It is a treasure, my friends; hold fast to it!