This question seems more fit for here than General Questions, so here it goes.
I’m pretty sure I want to teach high school english, but I’m just wondering if any of you have a job other than teaching that you got with a lit/writing bachelor’s (emphasis on writing in my case). I just transferred to a CSU as a junior, and that extra year I’ll need for my single-subject teaching credential, along with the other six or seven extra classes I’ll need to take to meet some federal requirement (I forgot the name) don’t sound like too much fun. I’m pretty sure I’ll just go through with all that anyway, but are there many other readily available jobs in this area? I’d love to be a novelist, or write movies, or something like that, but I doubt that’s the kind of thing I could easily make a living doing. Thanks.
You can go to a lot of places with a liberal arts degree. My older sister got her B.A. with a major in creative writing (San Francisco State). While she wrote some interesting stuff (one I remember well was a short story about her cat as the mothership for the fleas in her apartment), her professional career blossomed as a financial/operations consultant for restaurants.
My little sister and I share the same major with our liberal arts baccalaureates; she’s now a V.P. at a bank and I’m a geophysicist. While we both had to engage several years of post bachelors university courses, the initial B.A. is what got us started on the courses we’ve pursued.
I have a minor in English, and all I can say for you is JOURNALISM!!! If you like it and if you are a good writer, you might enjoy it. I’ve been told time and time again that Liberal Arts majors have a hard time getting their foot in the door, so the best thing that you can do is to use the time in between your bachelors and master’s degree very wisely. Get a job that will look good on resumes, that will pay well enough, and will offer you experience in the field that you want to go into. (Some libraries may hire you. Certainly worth a try.) I’m told that nothing looks better on your grad school application than experience.
There are lots of grant writers out there with English degrees. If you don’t mind working for near-nothing, there’s always a nonprofit in the area that can use you.
Yep. Journalism, Editing (not the same thing), technical writing, etc.
Here I am with a degree in history and I’ve made my way in publishing for more than 10 years on both sides of the business/editorial line.
Lotsa dough in it if you’re good and can write clearly on fairly technical subjects.
I turned my Bachelor’s in English into a web design job. That might not be an option now that the tech bubble has collapsed, but back then, my company was looking for a literate person with decent computer and social skills.
Advertising, Marketing, PR (writing press releases)… there are any number of jobs that require strong writing skills.
I work on the Editorial Team of a major national retailer… we write in-store advertising, produce in-store magazines, topical email newsletters, etc. Esays, interviews and blurbs, blurbs, blurbs. We have a handful of Lit majors (some with their masters), 2 journalism majors, my Anthropology major and a girl who never finished her BA.
My degree is called “Visual and Written Media”, but it’s basically a Writing degree with a good amount of art and photography thrown in. I wanted to end up in journalism but found it almost impossible to break into around here. Instead, I’m doing technical editing and writing for a BioMedical Research company. I’ve been thinking myself about heading back for the teaching degree, if only so I can be on the same schedule as my kids once they start school.
You can do anything with a degree in English or any of its analogs. It’s probably the best degree for someone who “doesn’t know what they want to in life.” I studied finance and wish I hadn’t; I work in finance and throw resumes of business majors out the window.
I was in the same position you’re in. I suddenly decided that I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in high school. Glad I didn’t. I’m now in journalism. It can be fun, but it doesn’t pay all that well (depending on where you’re at). Don’t give up on your dream of writing novels or movies!
Good luck!
Thanks for the responses. It’s funny how those few paragraphs have actually done more to tame my apprehensions than any conversations I’ve had with counselors, or anyone for that mater these past few years. I’d still like to hear from more of you. Thanks again!
First I’ll add some anecdotal evidence as a tail to what KidCharlemagne said. My long-time college roommie was an English major who cared not one whit about his GPA. He’d been a friend growing up, and I know him yet today. I don’t think he ever got a grade above, or below, a C. He graduated with a 2.0, and is one of the more successful of my friends, in advertising.
But what’s perhaps more important is that those who’ve pursued purely technical degree programs are often bereft of knowledge of the world that a liberal arts major might well have at hand. Peace(!) all you EE geeks - yes, I know a liberal arts major who’s not wandered from that side of the campus may well be seriously deficient in their grasp of simple physics or mathematics. And that is a problem.
I guess I’ve straddled the streams, and I see more utility to the “broad horizons” approach with each passing year. One of the best natural science courses I took was Historical Geology. An introductory course, it aspired to not only hammer into us the geologic time scale, but to as well explore how the generally accepted concepts of modern-day geology were deduced. It took us up the various blind alleys, and discussed how people interpreted what data they had at the time, and how new data changed the community’s appreciation of what had gone on before.
I never had another science course quite like it, although I could see a physics course being designed around the same model. Nevertheless, I had classmates who completely failed to appreciate it. I remember comments along the line of, “Why do I need to hear what they got wrong 100 years ago? Just give me the state-of-the-art rote memorization and I’ll be fine!”
This is not at all meant to say that our science grads can’t appreciate life. To the contrary, having spent my life around scientists, I think they can. But I also think the liberal arts students bring a little flavor that is not always easy to maintain if one goes 100% geek.
Well, I’m not really happy with what I’ve said, but it’s all I’ve got tonight. I’m sure, if needed, y’all will observe otherwise.