Welcome to Our New Majors

27 April 2022
By Elena Cebulash

In continuing our time-honored tradition here on Second Laird, we’d love to take a moment to welcome and recognize a few of our newly-declared English majors! In addition to our highly-exclusive spring celebration (complete with an incredibly successful, never-awkward Zoom call to our peers in London!), we also sent them a few questions to get to know them a bit better, and here are their responses! 

(A Note from the Other Miscellany Editors: if you see Elena in passing, please drown her in compliments for her beautiful artwork below!)


Han

Where are you from? 

Chicago/Beijing

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

The Griivarr Worlds from Starstruck by Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta—in particular, Uncle Bob’s Fantanimalland. The program would be named Fantanimalland Fever. 

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

Em dash!

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Odysseus


Soren Eversoll

Where are you from? 

Saint Paul, MN

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

Macondo, 100 Years in Macondo 

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

Em dash 

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Nick Adams 


Collin Preves

Where are you from? 

Crystal Lake, IL

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

This is a tough one. The movie “What Dreams May Come” springs to mind here; it’s a movie about Robin Williams going to the afterlife and what that looks like. It’s not the greatest movie ever made, but the afterlife itself is gorgeous, an absolutely wondrous place tailored specially for you. You could be in a living painting, or floating in the air, or running across a field of flowers, pretty much whatever you want it to be. I would call it “Living in Paradise: Exploring the world of ‘What Dreams May Come.'” 

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

Semi-colons; you gotta love semi-colons. 

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

I’ve never read Harry Potter, but I’ve seen the films enough times to tell you with confidence that Ron Weasley is more annoying than endearing, at least in the later films. 


Phoebe Ward

Where are you from? 

Dobbs Ferry, NY 

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

Arkansas, the “state”: Does it exist? Are you sure? 

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

I like to use multiple question marks in my essays??? Because it makes me sound perplexed and AGGRESSIVE???

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Katniss Everdeen. Her entire character is based on being “better” than other girls. We get it, she’s beautiful (but doesn’t care about her appearance), jacked, smart, and has a tragic past. Can’t she like makeup, at least a little bit? Can’t she order a vodka spritz at a bar or something?


Douglas Meeker

Where are you from? 

Barrington, Rhode Island

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

Pondering Ponds: Discovering What’s So Literary About Transcendental New England

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

EM-DASH!! or semi-colon 

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Saleem Sinai of Midnight’s Children


Ruby Mead

Where are you from? 

Chicago, IL

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

Pemberley Hall: You ARE Lizzie Bennet

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

scathing (and so many semi-colons)

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Jane Eyre


Julia Nicholson

Where are you from? 

Edina, MN

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

Extremely cliché but definitely the Wizarding World in Harry Potter. 

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

Em dash

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Jane Eyre


Nina Bunn

Where are you from? 

Watertown MA

If you could make a fictional place the destination for a new English study abroad program, what location would you choose and what would the name of your program be?

The woods of Moomin Valley! I’m not sure what it would be called, but we would take lots of forest walks and make berry jam.

What’s your favorite word/punctuation mark to over-use in an essay?

I think colons are supremely underrated as a punctuation mark.

Name a protagonist you think is overrated!

Tintin? That may be a bit controversial, but he’s a little boring! I think Captain Haddock and Snowy deserve far more air time for their hijinks.