So I'm extremely into writing, and would love to pursue it, but what kinds of jobs are offered besides the obvious? (teaching)
You got some possibilities: --technical writing: it might not be as satisfying from a creative standpoint, but it pays good. --journalism: lots of jobs, and lots of different angles, but the pay is crap until you get well-established, and if you do straight news, you won't be exactly revered. But if you get into a specialty market, you can do real nice. To do that, you gotta have special knowledge about something. --advertising: you'll write crap about crap, but the money is real good. --movie/TV scripts: if you can get a foot in the door, damn good money. No job security, though. --editor: hard to get these jobs, but good money. At one time or another, I've done all of these. They all have their plusses and minuses, like everything else.
OLS, But most universities have journalism majors, I believe. So journalism majors will, obviously, have the inside track in comparison to the English majors. Movie/TV scripts: Getting your foot in the door is extremely difficult and involves a lot of persistance and patience.
As an English major you will become very skilled at writing drafts, papers, screenplays, articles, short stories, poems. Or some of the above. You will be a skilled and analytical reader. These qualities are in demand in a variety of fields, besides those mentioned by the others. An articulate person, with good diction and grammar is far better in a business phone call, email, meeting, interview, speech, presentation, etc. than most others. You will have the upper hand in many encounters by appearing very intelligent and confident in your speech. As we all know, appearances are everything' making that first impression is extremely important. And as you may have heard from others, a college education goes a long way even if your not in your specific field. A friend of mine just graduated as an English major, graduated with honors, and is now a salesperson for company that renegotiates service contracts for franchises(he gets better deals for people and renegotiates their contracts with other vendors/cleaning or trash companies). Not that he expected he do that while he was in college, but he pulls what I imagine is close to 100k just 3 years after graduation. Completely unrelated field, very successful.
PS - I was an English major, but even though I'm a skilled essay writer I get bored very easily with just reading and writing long papers. Now I'm an art major with a focus in 3d modeling/animation.
I started off as a journalism major, but I'm going to change it. Everyone in our building calls us "a dying breed." Our metro newspaper has gone out of circuit in many counties, and plans to continue. I still love to write, so I'm switching to mass communications, hopefully something like editor, publisher, PR or marketing.
I have a B.A. in English Lit... I would suggest that... 1) you have the ability to look at a work or a group of related works and analyse the works to draw conclusions... This suggests government work at some level, but to pursue that, the Lit degree would be a foundation to further studies. 2) write books and poetry... find your genre... go to conferences... education doesn't stop at graduation 3) If you are into the motivation aspect of lit at all (i.e., take a psychological approach to analysis), then you might have an unlikely grasp of economics. I understand that microeconomics is the study of individuals and their choices and how that, in turns, effects society... (am in my MBA right now, not done yet, though). Literature, however, is a very broad subject. You could go into the business end of writing (a publishing house, etc.). You could freelance. You could blog. What draws you to writing and literature? Is it the creation of story? Is it the narrative? The characters? the essays? the reading? The language itself? I have my lit degree, and I work in the government as an administrator whose job is principally editing documents for grammar and .... things like verbs. Some folks forget just how important those pesky verbs can be...
I think the one piece of advice that NO English major needs fresh out of university is to blog. Eww. Me, I'm going with the ol' B.A. > M.A. > PhD > 'hello tenured professorship, yo'. At least, that's the plan :hat: (Just because Firefox doesn't underline 'professorship' doesn't mean I can't still have trouble believing it's a word, never mind knowing it's not the best choice here. Guess that's the English major talking )
Someone told me, when I asked the same question... "You want to major in English? I hope you like waiting tables!"
English is a good major because it can really expand you as a person if you let it. Some may say it's not good in a practical sense, but that really depends a lot on your life goals. For some people, it's not all about the career and money. If a person is interested in English, but they're always worried about future job prospects, then I think it's a great idea to couple an English major with a 2nd major. If you're technically oriented, an English/CS combo makes for an excellent background. Being able to write code as well as express your ideas in a sophisticated manner is extremely valuable. If you're not technically oriented, then an English/Business or English/Econ combo would be solid.
