Comments on: Major in English if you want

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:09:47 +0000

You need to be creative with your major. English majors are known to have good communication skills- a quality much appreciated by employers, regardless of the field. Their only option isn’t teaching- they can apply their skills and love for English to anything they do.

By: Trinh Kim Diep

Trinh Kim Diep — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:01:11 +0000

Thanks so much for your response. I am now 33 and will be going back to school to upgrade my English BA to an honors. I am afraid but feel that English and Creative writing are the only skills I’m actually really good at. I don’t know if I want to become a teacher but I know that working administrative jobs for the last 10 years after having my BA was not at all
fulfilling. So I’m going back to school, and hoping in time, things will reveal itself.

By: Money in the Bank

Money in the Bank — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:48:04 +0000

It seems like majoring in English or History leaves a small window of career opportunities, mainly being a teacher. I would love being a teacher, but the finances for choosing such a career are not favorable.

By: Donna

Donna — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:26:39 +0000

I majored in English because I was required to dual major in order to get my teaching degree. I was pleasantly surprised, enjoying it enough to go back for my English MA in Literature. I am worried that it could dead end me if ever I change fields, but it seems the MA is in demand where the BA isn’t. Since I’m attending a prestigious public school, a 10K increase in salary the first year after graduation will pay off the degree quite quickly. If I loved dry reading, I would go to law school.

By: Jerrold

Jerrold — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:48:57 +0000

I got an English degree because I had all of my dreams crushed in college (doing an engineering degree, passing calculus, etc) due to depression and social anxiety. I failed calculus so then I couldn’t get a business degree without passing Calc and I thought that would never happen. So I got a worthless degree just to get a piece of paper and get out of the university that was driving me crazy. Not only did I get a worthless degree, but it was in a subject I had no interest in. I am genuinely surprised the college suicide rate isn’t higher than it is.

By: James Owens

James Owens — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:58:07 +0000

I majored in english, I am not going to say it was worthless or a waste of time, but I think every english major should consider two things. Either you are going to law school or you are going to be a teacher. The degree by itself-will not, will not I repeat help you find a job. No employer cares that you have a degree in English. It prepares you for nothing in particular and you will end up going to either get a teaching degree or a law degree. If you want to break into another field get an internship while you are still attending school and schedule classes around it. It is going to be a lot harder to work an unpaid internship after you graduate unless you live at home or something.

By: Tomas

Tomas — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:01:51 +0000

I don’t want to be cranky, but you people seem completely out of touch with reality. The average college graduate earns $29,000 more each year than the average high school graduate. The idea that not going to college can, on average, be a better choice than going to college, is thus perhaps the worst financial advice one could offer. As for choice of major, outside of the hard sciences and engineering, where one learns concrete skills with direct application, the choice of major matters, at most, at the margin. What matters most is doing well; and doing well requires you to study what you find most interesting. In short, go to college if you can; it will result in $900,00 more income over a 30 year work life. Major in what interests you and do well.

By: mbhunter

mbhunter — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:21:34 +0000

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories and comments!

Anne Keckler: Yes, I agree that one can get the knowledge more cheaply and more efficiently: Buy textbooks and read them! The contacts are indeed a big component of a college education and I didn’t take advantage of that with mine.

guinness416: Good point. Even if a 17-year-old did “do the math” and figured out that college would be a waste of time, I suspect that his parents might disagree anyway. As difficult as it might be, thinking about the consequences/prospects of a particular major early on helps, especially if the 17-year-old will be carrying the debt for the college.

Regarding the connection between majoring in English and writing well: I would hope that English majors at a minimum would be great writers; I think they deserve more credit than just being able to write well, like the ability to communicate effectively and the ability to synthesize information from varied sources. Writing as a skill should be taught earlier than college, but the skills that English majors learn go beyond this, for sure.

By: LC

LC — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:26:27 +0000

I high school, I excelled at and enjoyed both English and music. I was the best in my class in both of these areas, and my teachers in strongly encouraged me to pursue careers in these areas. However, I felt that doing so would prevent me from enjoying them as much. I also did well in science and math classes, but I was far from the best student in these classes. I ended up choosing a career in engineering, and I am making a good living at something I really enjoy. I still play in several community music groups as well as on my own, and I find that many of my friends who majored in music are struggling to get by and have lost the ability to play just for the fun of it. So, assuming you have interests and aptitute in several areas, I would pick the one that offers the best salary and do the others for fun. A higher salary will allow you to retire earlier, and then pursue the other fields with more passion, which is what I plan to do.

By: kitty

kitty — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:04:26 +0000

“I decided to major in English in college because I wanted to learn how to read and write well.”
Shouldn’t one learn how to read and write well in school? Seems strange to me that you need to major in something just to get these basic skills.

I grew up in Russia, and by the time I finished school I could read and write very well in Russian. Final exams at all schools included oral and written language/literature test based on a standardized program that included Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” that we read in 9th grade, along with Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”. Written exam involved writing a 5 page paper written in class on a literary topic. Three grammar errors and you failed. A missed/extra punctuation mark counted as half an error. The paper was graded on both content and grammar, so you couldn’t get away with keeping to simple sentences or you’d get penalized for content or style.

I think in most European countries kids learn how to read and write in the native language in school. People who major in a native language do it to become writers or journalists, not to learn basic skills.

As to the major, I think it depends. It’s OK to major in what you like as long as you know what to expect, and have some aptitude. Some people succeed with degrees in English (which in the US is a lot more practical than some other fields, like French Literature or Philosophy or history or Political Science or Art), others end up unemployed with tons of student loans and working for a minimum wage. Additionally some people seriously overestimate their abilities in their chosen field.

I’ve seen a pianist with a specialty and interest in opera accompaniment succeeding – she works now at the Met. I know an English major – daughter of a friend of mine – whose short story won a place in 2007 O’Henry collection and whose first book of short stories is coming out next year. I’ve also met a talented opera singer who graduated from Mannes but went back to college to learn Computer Science. This opera singer was good, but with a sick mother and no money she just couldn’t afford to travel to competitions that could give her visibility. Still, I think if you have a really great talent and passion you owe it to yourself to try it, at least until certain age. With an average talent, you can still study what you like, but you need to have an idea about what kind of job you can get and be happy with it.

Engineering and Computer Science require some aptitude too. You have to be good in math, you have to be able to think logically. Not everyone can do it.

Dual major is a pretty good idea, if you can swing it. I had major in Computer Science and minor in Italian literature. Was pretty close to getting a second major in Italian but opted to graduate sooner and go to graduate school in CS instead. If I had a great voice, I’d have loved to be an opera singer, but I don’t.