English major senior Claire Corbeaux explains that her initial exploration into English courses sophomore year influenced the rest of her Geneseo experience (Leila Sassouni / knights’ life editor).
“When I first got to Geneseo, I came in as a physics major because I really loved physics … So, I started doing physics and I met a lot of friends that way because the department is really close, and the professors are super smart and nice. But as I was going through the major, I started to feel my confidence sort of going way. Not because of the department, but I felt like I wasn’t in, you know, the place where I should’ve been. So, I was kind of struggling and I didn’t have a lot of confidence—that was when I was a freshman. And then in my sophomore year, I was like ‘well, maybe I should try doing something else,’ and Geneseo is a great place to do that, right? Because there are so many different departments and there’s the emphasis on liberal arts education. It was kind of easy for me to try other things and I started taking English—Dr. McCoy’s [English class] … and it changed my whole course, the whole course of my life. I took that class and I felt like I really belonged in that class and it was just so nice because I felt like I was really learning and growing as an individual, and I just learned so many different life lessons … I would think about things more thoroughly and think about my relationship to the world at large. It just encouraged me to be a better thinker, a better writer but also just a better person in general. It was just amazing to take a class that could change you so much as a person … I changed my major to English [and chose to do a minor in physics]. Since then, it’s been great because Geneseo just gives you so many opportunities … When I write, usually, not always, but a lot of my papers are interdisciplinary … It’s just so nice that Geneseo is a place that allows me to knit my passions, though it was also very encouraging in me finding where I belonged.”