Career Exploration
“You don’t have to ask for permission to have the career that you want," says alumna Jamie Millard about how her English major helped prepare her for a career in publishing: "You can just go out and take it.”
Majoring in English prepares you for a lifetime of learning, cultivates a broad understanding, and encourages you to make connections across many different fields and ways of knowing. It also readies you for a wide variety of careers and gives you the tools you need to succeed in the increasingly global 21st-century economy.
In particular, majoring in English helps you develop transferable skills—skills that are not tied to a particular vocation but can be valuable in almost any career. According to a recent survey of more than 300 major employers, these skills include:
- the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing
- critical thinking and analytical reasoning
- the ability to analyze and solve complex problems
- the ability to connect choices and actions to ethical decisions
- teamwork and the ability to collaborate with others in diverse group settings
- the ability to innovate and be creative
- the ability to locate, organize, and evaluate information from multiple sources
Pairing your English major with real-world experience helps you figure out what you want for your career, and prepares you to go out and do it.
Careers for English majors include:
- Advertising Manager
- Book Reviewer
- Business Writer
- Communications Consultant
- Communications Director
- Communications Specialist
- Copy Editor
- Curriculum Developer
- Editor
- Grant Writer
- Lawyer
- Librarian
- Literary Agent
- Marketing Director
- Media Manager
- Professor
- Project Director
- Public Relations Manager
- Publicist
- Publisher
- Screenwriter
- Script Supervisor
- Strategic Planning Consultant
- Teacher
- Web Manager
- Writer
Our alumni include a professor of surgery and a research biologist; an inventor of magnetic poetry and an inventive humorist; a NASA staff engineer, an actor, and a dancer-choreographer; librarians, lawyers, and literature professors; scriptwriters, high school teachers, and leaders of commerce. To name just a few.
Where will a degree in English take you?