Here is a fun fact I learned through NPR:

The deer mouse’s uterus occasionally houses sperm from multiple partners. Sperm cells will actually “team up” for a better chance at reaching and fertilizing the egg. A Harvard biologist recently discovered these teams are predominantly divided by their partners of origin. Finally, the mystery of deer mice seminal combat is solved!

Knowing factoids like this is helpful in the likely event a student asks an off-topic question. For example:

The first question I was asked as an instructor at this university was, “How old are you?”

To which I replied something less witty than, “Old enough to drink, too young to retire.”

Kids say the darndest things.

Another student would later ask, “Why are you studying English?”

That is harder question to answer. After all, what is the relative worth of a degree in the humanities? There are far more lucrative pursuits in life. A recent article in the New York Times by Kate Zernike reported college students’ growing desire to see their investment — a college education and degree — translate into a reserved spot in the workforce.

Professional degree programs, such as business or engineering, are experiencing greater enrollment where philosophy and classics departments are closing at schools like Louisiana and Michigan State. Where does that leave the few seeking non-professional degrees?

In his book “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go” Thomas Benton warns the overworked, debt-plagued, impressionable students of the humanities. Benton argues these grad students struggle against one another to earn a PhD with the unrealistic expectation of employment at a four year university. Each hopes to find and fertilize the great, glowing orb of a tenure track professorship. It appears they could learn something from deer mice sperm.

So, the cost of a humanities degree is four (or more) year’s worth of tuition minus whatever income that degree can provide. The answer is variable. That addresses the question of price but not necessarily the worth of pursuing English.

There are also far nobler pursuits than the study of literature or dead languages. Careers in medicine can substantially improve the quality or length of many people’s lives. Research in the hard sciences can lead to improvements in agriculture or clean energy.

Juxtaposed with curing polio or increasing food supply, studying Shakespeare seems pedantic, elitist and irrelevant. I’m reminded of the doctoral dissertation researching botany in Shakespeare.

Of course, I’m also reminded of the Harvard biologist who studied the esoteric promiscuity of deer mice. I’m reminded of recent ivy-league law school graduates forced to work in the public sector for a lack of the openings in private firms. No profession is free from the risks financial insecurity or appearing irrelevant.

Attending college is often and rightly thought as necessary to earning a super-sistence living or finding a spouse who can. Hence, I return to grad school as my undergrad career awarded neither.

The price of a degree will vary by the job market and cost and duration of your degree. Unemployment and tuition have both been on the rise as of late.

The worthiness of what you study, however, is largely up to you. Is it to find a job, make the world a better place, make your mom and dad proud or place yourself within a realm of eligible bachelor and bachelorettes? Whatever it is, it can be measured by the ability to get to sleep at night.

My own answer doesn’t speak for all students of English and much less for all of the humanities. I can sleep soundly (after grading essays, writing my own, and preparing lecture notes) even with the question “Why do you wanna study English?” gnawing at my brain like a deer mouse. When asked, the words of the Italian Stallion lull me to slumber.

“Because I can’t sing or dance.”