Hip, Young English Professor Careful Not to Inspire Students Too Much

29-year-old University of Calgary professor Kyle Schmidt, who just last year earned his PhD in English literature from UBC, says that while he loves his job, he is always careful not to inspire his students too much.

"I mostly teach first year English classes," Schmidt says. "So I understand that my students are at a very impressionable stage in their lives. That's why I have to be careful not to get them too excited about literature, you know, careful not to give them any ideas."

Schmidt says that while he feels that English is an important part of any post-secondary education, he would never encourage any of his students to pursue it past second year.

"It would really kill me if it turned out I were the reason that one of my fresh-faced, intelligent students decided to major in English," Schmidt says. "Like all teachers, I have to work hard to keep my students engaged, which isn't always easy when we're constantly reading Shakespeare. But every once in a while, some bright, genius of a kid will find true enlightenment in something like Othello, or Romeo and Juliet, and that gets me a little worried. So then I have to assign, like, 50 pages of Chaucer just to crush their spirit. It's the only way I can sleep at night."

Schmidt admits that he sees his younger self in a lot of the students he teaches.

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder 'what if?', you know? What if I majored in computer science, or physics? Who knows? But, I mean, all I can do now is keep my students from making the same mistakes I made as a top-class honours student."

While he acknowledges that there are in fact many intellectual benefits of spending over a decade in university and going into five-figure debt, Schmidt hopes that, at most, English literature can be for his students a relatively easy elective to occupy one or two classes in first year.

"My PhD was an investment that so far has paid off, I guess," Schmidt says. 

But, when asked if he regrets the choices he made in university, Schmidt admitted: "Kinda. I mean, I spent my formative years fighting to join an elite class of academics, and I succeeded. So that feels good. But how long that feeling will last is anybody's guess."

For now, Schmidt plans on enjoying his time as associate professor at U of C. But his success as an English professor hasn't kept him from looking to the future.

"I've been thinking about going up north lately. Actually, it's all I think about. I hear that's where the money is."

Growing visibly distraught, Schmidt added, "Did you know forklift operators make the same as I do? For fuck's sake, why didn't anybody tell me that when I was in school? Forklift operators, for Christ's sake. Unbelievable."