By Simon Schwengler
The sun shone through the windows of the Yellowjacket Union at the University of Wisconsin-Superior Thursday afternoon on March 9th shedding some light on the Majors Fair and Advisement Kickoff event taking place. Tables lined the area in front of the Rothwell Opportunity Center so current and potential students walking through could talk with professors and current students from various academic departments like writing and history.
An associate professor from the Writing department on campus, Dr. Jayson Iwen, explained how writing can allow graduates to become more marketable for jobs as, “Writing is one of the most sought after job skills nowadays.” Iwen added, “Basically in every field you go into you’re going to be doing writing.”
Iwen also pointed out the numerous job possibilities for students in the writing program as he said, “Writing can prepare students for careers in many fields like, publishing, technical writing, grant writing, media, and public relations. Iwen emphasized writing isn’t just a major, it’s a skill as there are “Lots of different fields where writing is a highly valued skill.”
Just one way UW-Superior distinguishes itself from other universities is having a Writing degree as Iwen added, “The Bachelor of Arts in Writing is new here and it’s actually fairly unique nationally, there aren’t that many programs that give Bachelor’s degrees in Writing, it’s usually in English or Creative Writing.”
Writing is also a popular degree choice because of its versatility with other majors and minors as Iwen explained, “Writing in particular tends to be a popular degree because you can couple it with just about any other major or minor you have on campus and it’s a good compliment to any other degree.”
This event was also for undecided students, which is good for the writing program as Iwen said, “A lot of times, students who are undecided make really good writers.” Iwen added, “I particularly like working with folks who are undecided about life in general because they tend to have really interesting personal narratives and that leads to good writing.”
We get a student’s perspective of UW-Superior from senior Nick Muska, a legal studies major and philosophy minor, who explained philosophy, “teaches you how to think which is pretty powerful.”
Muska explained philosophy is important and isn’t just about understanding material, but understanding yourself as Muska added, “Understanding yourself is probably one of, if not the most important thing in life.”
A powerful principle of philosophy Muska said is, “I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
Muska added that we may not understand everything we’ve been taught growing up as, “In the world we live in today there’s so much we are taught from a really young age that we don’t really fully understand.”
Muska says thinking through what we’ve been taught allows us to examine our ideas better as, “It’s really good to be able to question things and get to the root of why we think the things we do or why we act a certain way.”
Undecided and potential students weren’t pressured to make any decisions about a major or minor at the event as Iwen said, “We’re just here offering information to students who don’t know what they’re doing yet.”
Numerous conversations between students and faculty took place at the major’s fair Tuesday. Hopefully, undecided students got a step closer to choosing their major or minor and potential students considered how studying at UW-Superior would add to their resume.
