Most traditional college students no longer review literature from the Romantic or Victorian periods unless they are English majors. Stories, plays, novels, and poetry that echo Samuel Coleridge, William Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson may have been replaced in ENC 1101 and 1102 course content that involve broad research and writing connected to medical, business, and public service disciplines.

For the past 5 years, most English professors will align their course curriculum heavily on research and writing that connects with a career emphasis. In this respect, students feel their projects and papers connect with their majors. The University of South Florida’s  English Department offers internship classes that provide students with Tampa Bay businesses and organizations.

Some private colleges or nontraditional universities may have a different approach with the readings for a Creative Writing class. Jennifer Andrews teaches Creative Writing at The Los Angeles Film School, and she likes to give her students basic story structures from fairy tales to build confidence and foundation. Andrews states, “students can analyze the basic story structure with fairy tales– if they connect with something that is very familiar, then they become conscious, and they naturally pursue other narratives.”

Students who attend any university or college and study any discipline should have a universal reading list that is not only diverse in gender, race, and culture, but in their field as well.

If students want to explore American and/or British Literature, they still can criticize and analyze those particular authors like Hemingway and texts such as The Glass Menagerie.  However, the current class options are more contemporary and diverse based on a wide range of interests and career connections. 

For example, at Eckerd College in Florida, students can register for a courses: Bioethics and Literary Imagination that involves genetics and cloning, as well as, Automobile & American Culture that involves the invention and development of the automobile in the United States.

Not only are colleges and universities supporting individualized or customized genres for students, but newsrooms such as the NY Times are providing research and writing sources that involve majors and disciplines beyond the arts such as engineering and communications.  For instance, a student interested in STEM writing can obtain lessons and enter contests in this category.  Many of these contests cater to those in high school which should give professors insight in the “writing and research” for disciplines as more than a trend.