Anna Greenleaves on what it is like to be an English and Philosophy combined student.

Being propelled forwards by the conveyor belt of education, I was heading towards a narrowing of disciplines, and it saddened me. I was anxious about limiting myself to a single subject. I was always searching the wasteland between fields of academia, hoping that where several disciplines had collided, I would be blissfully absorbed by the overlap. So, I considered myself a combined course candidate, choosing a concentration of English Literature and Philosophy. In preparation for this undertaking, still immersed in high school naivety, I read Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. I came to university expecting every lecture to offer a new bit of philosophical literature, sealed in an envelope, and delivered by my very own mysterious philosopher. Hand-delivered and inspired, I wanted this little snippet of knowledge to create a glorious expansion of confusion; open my mind to higher plains.

This dream has been interrupted somewhat. The way I have come to learn Philosophy, has replaced the magical vagueness that I craved, with a strategic inwards movement. With every module that I pluck from the darkness, I find myself burrowing into its foundations, and then struggling to remember what lay on its surface, and beyond. To even attempt a guarded glance at the bigger picture, each modular morsel has to be digested in turn. As Philosophy students, the door to the banquet hall is open, but the quantity of food is inconceivable. The excess can become overwhelming; the state is comparable to Roquentin’s nausea. Those little envelopes don’t flip open, and spill their contents; they draw you into their folds. Their paper boundaries are impenetrable for whole terms at a time.

My flowery English student ways suggest another analogy; for why not say it all? Philosophy permits me to take a single piece of a cardboard jigsaw puzzle at a time, and explore its possibilities; where it will fit into the puzzle as a whole. The problem arises when the cardboard piece is dropped in water. It expands considerably; swelling to a new shape. It might even start shedding layers. Now I realise the degree of my struggle; this single puzzle-piece could take years to tackle. Is it surprising that we get trapped exploring the misfits?

I turn to literature with the sharpest paper knife I can find. I want the words to be lifted from the page, and stamped onto existence. I am tired of working inwards, and yearn for generalisations. I admire those literary works for their pushing of the boundaries; the way the letter works away at the envelope’s seams. I fall for the powerful novels that convert individual, small claims into general claims of the universe. I adore the appearance of poetry, when none of the excess is dismissed; no word is abandoned. Yet, my comfort is incomplete. During my English modules I feel frivolous in my use of language.

I locate my ‘blissful’ bewilderment between my disciplines, and face its practical consequences. My philosophy tutors complain of superfluous adjectives, and my aesthetic attitude towards grammar. I switch to a clear and concise communication of ideas, but then it pollutes my English essays. English examiners’ comments praise the piece’s clarity, but show disappointment in its literary flourishing and style.

Finally, in the last taught term of my University career, I arrive at the bridge. With this bridge module, I just write. My parachute has carried me to no-man’s land, or all-man’s land. It is interdisciplinary paradise.