[kajecounterhack]

This is just an honest, curious question as a CS undergrad right now: what jobs are there for english majors?

As much as I might love reading and writing, and as much as I believe that a lot of literature is an overall human good, even writers & scholars need to feed and clothe themselves, right?

[mechanical_fish]

Pretty much the same jobs there are for anybody else.

Unless you're actually planning to become a professor, a scientist, or a Professional Engineer (note the capital letters!) it really doesn't matter much what you major in as an undergrad. It's only four years out of your 80-year lifespan. (And, since not every course in college is a course in your major, it isn't even that.)

You do have to be careful to take enough science courses if you want to go to medical or dental school, but even that can be fixed after the fact. A friend of mine graduated in English, then decided to go to med school, and her college allowed her to come back and take a couple years of intense science courseload. No problem. (Unless you count debt, of course. Make no mistake: Math and science courses are good investments, even if you're an English major. You never know when chemistry or statistics will come in handy.)

I couldn't have majored in my own current profession -- web development -- even had I known to do so, because the web was invented the year after I graduated from college. My own misspent youth was in EE and physics, but I have colleagues -- many more talented than I -- who majored in English, worked as professional actors, or played in symphony orchestras. They learned their current careers like almost everyone does: A mixture of "teaching yourself in your spare time" and "working your way up from the bottom".

[brg]

One's major is too understated when described as simply 4 years out of a 80 year lifespan. It is the moment in your life when you decide your career path. It is the time when all of society give you a pass to spend your time preparing for greatness.

After it is over you have responsibilities, bills, and work becomes a necessity if you live with any ambition. 40 hours a week you will be working to fulfill someone else's desires, if those are you customers or your own. But you will almost never again be given a free pass to spend four years ostensibly studying.

And getting a good start towards a career is extremely valuable. Most success, in math, science, or industry come as the result of a long journey. A good start can significantly shorten the duration between start and finish.

[klenwell]

Python developer. That's where I ended up.

For those who wish to pursue their passion for literature, a lot end up as teachers or indentured servants for the university system. Louis Menand explains the dynamics behind this latter phenomenon in his recent book The Marketplace of Ideas.

[ax0n]

Unless you plan on teaching the subject, a lot of places don't care what your major was, so long as you have the piece of paper that says you graduated. My dad is a Mech. E. with a music education degree, for example. He still makes music, and knows music theory better than anyone I know. A major in English would likely be valuable in almost any field, so long as you could use it to play up your communications skills. Grammar, written and verbal communication are skills that are often found lacking in today's technical work force.

[_delirium]

In particular, my impression is that outside of technical majors (CS, math, sciences, and engineering) the classic liberal-arts degrees can often be more valuable than one tied to the particular job. I've heard lots of places hiring for nominally "business" type jobs actually skeptical of people with BAs in Business, for example.

[electromagnetic]

Ironically English majors typically don't fill the literary world, or even the ranks of journalists and magazine writers. Quite frankly, when have you ever read a magazine about any topic touched by an English major. How will an english major help you write about mechanics, make-up, or interior decoration? It won't.

I got work as a reviewer at 16, why? Because I love movies, video games, books and people can't get me to shut the fuck up about them. It only helped that I'm a naturally talented writer. In fact the information I gained from doing the job was that taking courses in Journalism and English typically excluded you from doing the work, New Journalism killed any prospects of a classically trained Journalist from hitting it big.

[muhfuhkuh]

For some of us, technical writing. You know those (non-Engrish) manuals you toss aside (or leave uselessly bonking around in the box) for your software package or electronic thingy? Yeah, that's our work. You're welcome.

So, usage manuals, reference books, instructional posters, Material Safety Data Sheets, quickstart guides, and so on. Every company that makes anything needs at least one writer (unless you do agile programming, which for some reason shuns documentation being a resource unit and more of a PITA). And, I suppose you can make someone on your development or QA staff write docs, but who would want to? That's where we step in.

I mean, the guy mowing the lawn outside your office complex has his job, I've got mine :D Mine does pay 90k year (and this is in the South), but my colleague in Sunnyvale is just over 6 figures. Yes, solely from writing for a major software company.

Of course, there is the entertainment industry where, if you can get a good "holding" or "development" deal with a major studio, you're well into 6-figures, probably quarter-to-half million a year. Scriptwriting teams that don't get the byline in a movie make about 60-80k a film, depending on overall budgets. That's 2-3 months of work for some, so you can see how that stacks up in a year. I don't want to live that world, though, because you basically must be in Hollywood unless you're a superstar.

Finally, there's game design and story writing, which for the most part, you'll find everyone there are from an English Lit. background. Talk about hand-to-mouth, though. A true feast/famine career. But, if you have a solid track record, you tend to "fail upwards" to bigger budgeted games at major studios. Be prepared to move to Vancouver, BC, though. I like that route, personally, but I don't have anything game-related under my belt (yet).

[anonjon]

I can't answer as an English major, but I can answer as a Philsophy major. (Humanities --Burger King-- right?).

I'm now a lisp programmer.

I imagine that I would be making more money (potentially anyway) had I gone through a computer science department, but I don't think I would have been as good a programmer. Nothing against computer science departments, especially the good ones. Where I went to school, it seemed like they were teaching a lot of 'how' and not as much 'what' or 'why'.

I would have learned a lot of very relevant and useful math working my way through the computer science department (and probably a working knowledge of Java), but I don't think I would have has as much experience really thinking things through. (I can teach myself the math anyway...)

I also know quite a few English majors, the jobs occupy a pretty wide range. A couple are singer/songwriters (starving, of course), one is an administrative assistant at a hospital, and another is working for a textbook company.

Other potential 'after graduation' things include technical writing, getting a masters in something else (like journalism).

I think programmer is kind of an out-lier among humanities, as it is harder to break into (You have to prove you can write code, whereas the CS major does not...) I started in a sort of technical writing position, and 'apprenticed' until I understood enough of the code to be useful. I also did a lot of learning on my own...

[muhfuhkuh]

I can TOTALLY see alot of philosophy majors doing LISP (or CSS/XSLT) programming. I remember my philosophy credit in college (working toward my equally touchy-feely degree in English Lit.) was Symbolic Logic. Tarski's World was my friend and nemesis for that semester. They should seriously consider putting happy faces on the dodecahedrons at least.

First-order logic is not to be fussed with. The latter part of that course kicked my ass, but that might've also been due to me smoking an inordinate amount of weed at the time.

[rogermugs]

you can teach. or you can spend your life blogging poetry/prose in hopes of a life of non-obscurity.

but neither pays well... take it from me. an english major.