<p>I am a junior majoring in English. I have maintained a 3.9 GPA and have interned in an immigration law firm for two summers. I am interested in immigration and human rights issues. In addition, I am also interested in learning about cultural and ethnic groups and their relationships to/ experiences in the United States. I always thought the legal field was the ideal career for me, however, I realized that I prefer learning about the issues I have mentioned above through literature. In fact, rather than reading human rights reports, I enjoy reading and analyzing ethnic literature. Thus, I am starting to consider English grad programs (with an emphasis on American and multi-ethnic literature) or American Studies grad programs. </p>
<p>So… what do you want to do after graduate or law school? That’s the question. Postgraduate education is a means to an end, and you need to have a reasonable idea of what end you’re trying to reach.</p>
<p>If you want to pursue a career substantially involving immigration law, you have to go to law school.</p>
<p>If you want to pursue a career in academia, researching and writing about cultural and ethnic experiences, you should look at academic graduate programs such as the ones you mentioned, and/or history programs as well.</p>
<p>You mean ethnic literature? Not really. Maybe a few independent foundations or museums have such positions, but researching literature is not exactly a big business.</p>
<p>To be frank, there are many ways that you can learn about cultural and ethnic groups. You can read books, attend seminars at local universities, search the Internet, live in ethnic enclaves, even take classes as a non-degree student. You don’t have to go to graduate school to do that. As polarscribe said, grad school is a means to an end.</p>
<p>There are some jobs that will allow you to work with minority ethnic group literature and cultural arts. Librarians would do the analyzing and cataloging, and museum staff often curate collections that may include books (but will more likely include artifacts). But really, people who analyze literature are going to be English literature scholars. They are mostly professors, and English literature (especially American literature, although ethnic studies would give it a little spin) is a very competitive field to secure an academic position within.</p>
<p>If you want to study cultural/ethnic groups in the US and are willing to use methods other than literature, there are many jobs for that. Many government agencies (federal, state, and local) as well as private foundations and think tanks do that kind of research.</p>
<p>You said you are interested in human rights and immigration. There are a lot of people interested in, and working in, that who don’t want to be lawyers and aren’t necessarily interested in defending those cases. You could do work with an NGO or government agency assisting immigrants or conducting research. You could pass the civil service exam and work in the foreign service as a consular officer or in another role.</p>