After reading this thread I am suddenly reminded why I picked up a pair of engineering degrees instead of an english degree or literature or some other overly complicated tool of the devil that exists purely so old men in tweed suits can argue to one another how to properly use an antiquated word or rail against how a word is evolving or how to properly cite a source or other such mind numbingly complex things that are somehow more complicated then z-pinch fusion...
I think this man right here had the right idea:
I am the King of Rome, and above grammar ~ Emperor Sigismund
I was an English major once. Unfortunately, the experience is far worse than you depicted.
For those of you playing at home, here is your step-by-step guide to getting the same quality education as a $40,000 a year college will offer, from the comfort and safety of your home!
Step 1: Pick any two pieces of "good" literature written within 200 years of each other. You know a literary piece is good if it is over 100 years old.
Step 2: Write a compare-and-contrast essay about these two pieces of work. For best results, ensure that both articles have jack-shit to do with each other.
Step 3: Page 1 of your compare-and-contrast essay will be dull, unequivocally vague bullshit, outlining crap that you could have read in the first 3 lines of Wikipedia... except Wikipedia is a part of the internet where no one gets royalties from, so you can't use it. Its also very bad and 100% lies.
Step 4: Pages 2, 3, and 4 will all outline how these pieces of work are obviously different. If you could have easily written the entire content of these 3 pages in 4 sentences or less, CONGRATULATIONS! You are well on your way to becoming a professor!
Step 5: Page 5 will reverse everything the last 3 pages have said. For bonus points, use the line "Herein lines the similarities which irrefutably outlines how these two articles are similar to each other and/or were influenced by each other. Upon discovering this, my life is forever changed."
Step 6: Write a half-to-full-page conclusion which summarizes up the rest of your paper for the professor who was too lazy to read the rest of your work... and by "professor," I mean TA.
Step 7: Turn in this in to a "professor" for their subjective grading. A professor is anyone who has played this game before you have. It does not matter if they have the intelligence of a toddler. If they smoke ample amounts of marijuana, they are especially qualified.
If you are a professor grading this highly academic paper, feel free to grade it any way you like. You can grade it by how good your coffee is, how pretty the font is, or by the more common method: does the paper make a good spliff?
With these easy steps, you too can get all the knowledge given with an English degree!