If you’re considering a degree in English, chances are, people have been only too willing to volunteer their opinions. So like the rest of them, I would like to offer my unsolicited advice. But unlike many or most of them, I can offer relevant insight. I’m an English major myself who has been working “in the real world” for about five years now. I went to a small college in order to pursue this degree, and I’ve heard a LOT of advice.
Caveat: I recognize that college is exorbitantly expensive, not conducive to every career path, and that the views surrounding it are changing. However, many employers require or prefer a college degree for many career paths, and my degree has been critical for me. If you have decided that college is the best option for your career aspirations and interests, this article is for you.
Here are the points you actually need to hear, and the ones I wish someone had told me.
- Which major you choose doesn’t actually matter that much…to employers. However, it will matter immensely to you.
- If you absolutely hate what you’re studying, it will be a miserable four years, but if you love it, nothing can stop you from growing. You’ll be pursuing what you love until it pays, rather than learning to suck it up in preparation for decades of grinding your teeth.
- When you get out of college, you generally have no experience yet. The material point of your degree is that you applied yourself to a field of study and you finished what you started. That speaks less to what you studied and more to your persistence and willingness to adapt yourself to overcome challenges. Hopefully you practiced critical thinking.
- But as far as whether your major is a good match for a prospective job, for every job listing I’ve read, your education is judged less by the specific name of your major and more by what general bucket of knowledge you dipped into. For example, Writing, English, communications, and sometimes marketing are often bucketed together, and if your major lands in of those fields, you’ll be in the running. And even if you’re not exactly what was described in the listing, if you can make a good case for yourself in your application and interview, you could still land a job that isn’t specifically geared toward your field.
- You and your English skills are desperately needed.
- Even if you haven’t touched a piece of paper in years, you are inundated with written communications every day. Going on social media? Someone had to craft those posts and ads. Watching videos? Someone wrote the script. Receiving tons of emails? It’s someone’s job to write those.
- You’ve probably seen how everyone mocks a misspelled or tone-deaf article that made it to publication. Do you know how smart companies avoid being the butt of those jokes? By hiring someone like you.
- Teaching is only one of the careers you can build on an English degree.
- If you want to teach, great. But if you don’t, say so and own it. Teaching can be an admirable pursuit, but there are plenty of English majors like me who would be perfectly miserable in that role. There are tons of things you can do with an English degree that are not teaching, so don’t throw in the towel even if that’s the only use for it that people around you can come up with.
- Here are some things you can gain from an English degree:
- Writing skills
- Reading comprehension (sorely needed and sadly lacking)
- Communication skills
- Research skills
- Critical thinking
- An interdisciplinary view of the world and its problems
- A richer understanding of the culture whose literature you read
- The ability to discuss, listen to and consider other viewpoints, and disagree respectfully
- As you’ve probably noticed, these are essential skills to a wide variety of careers. An English degree lays a great base layer for a lot of careers, including lucrative ones like law or technical writing.
- As with any pursuit, you will only get out of it what you put into it.
- This means that if you are willing to be open-minded, try new things, learn from people who are different from you, and put in the work, you will benefit richly from getting an English degree. You will grow your skills, your mind, and your horizons. What you find an affinity for as you study will direct you to more specific subjects that could lead to your lifelong passions or career.
- But if you come to college with the intention of doing as little as you can get by with, even if you graduate, your degree will only be words on a page that cost tens of thousands of dollars without making you a better, more knowledgeable, or more fit employee. This is true of any pursuit.
- There are places in life where you can get by with half-assing everything. If that’s your intention, at least do it somewhere that pays you, rather than shelling out money for the wasted experience.
No degree is going to guarantee an easy life or a perfectly clear path. It’s one potential building block, a chance to sharpen your skills and prepare you for a career that you will enjoy and that will sustain you. But obviously college is expensive, so it’s a good idea to weigh the pros and cons of any plan with an analytical mindset.
It’s not the right path for everybody, and our paths vary widely even within the same discipline. But if the skills you’d most like to use are listed under #4 or the job you want requires a degree, don’t be afraid to get an English major if that feels like the right choice for you. Most of the well-meaning people advising against it don’t know enough to be giving advice.
Whether you’re planning to become an English major or not, here is my advice: The end goal is to make enough money to live on, but to live without passion is a hard road indeed. Gather information, then shut out everyone’s voices, get honest with yourself, and choose wisely. I’m pulling for you!
