how to make the most money with a liberal arts degree?

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

<p>so i graduated from U.Va in May 10. As an English Language and Literature Degree holder, it seems as if most of the traditional career paths expected of me aren't exactly lucrative. What job can I pursue with my degree and qualifications that would help me earn a little more? Such as say 40-50K for now, as a fresh young college grad? It doesn't have to be directly related to my major but something that I can do now that I have a college education.</p>

2

<p>Mmm, it is late to be asking this question… I am not clear why students select majors without exploring the career opportunities that go with them.</p>

<p>So here are some things to think about:

  • Do you have a minor in anything like education? Several classes in some area like computer science or statistics? Sometimes those skills can be leveraged into a more lucrative starting job even if you do not have a full minor in the subject.<br>
  • Or did you do any ECs in college that might provide some skills that would be useful (eg, campus radio station)?<br>
  • How set are you on using your actual degree coursework in your work? Something in editing or with a publishing company would be a possible path, although not likely very lucrative for a new grad even if you can land a job.
  • If you haven’t, go to your campus career placement office and start working with them ASAP. They may have suggestions, or recruiters coming to campus that you might interview with.</p>
3

<p>nope. I have taken multiple biology upper lever courses however. not sure how i can use them in the job hunt however…</p>

<p>i worked as a student caller at the university development office. i have since built on that experience interning in the marketing and sales field for the past 5 months now. </p>

<p>no. i don’t really care about using my english major skills. though, i suppose i’d love to do something with writing or communication…</p>

4

<p>40-50k is good very solid starting salary in a good economy… IMO you will be hard pressed to find that, unless you know someone who can hook you up with something.</p>

5

<p>Teach for America? They actually have salaries in the high 30s-low 40s depending on the state. </p>

<p>I would think teaching would be your best option. Otherwise, you could look at grad school.</p>

6

<p>

There are a lot of commissioned officers at the paygrades of O-1 to O-2 in the military that are making far more than 40-50k/year.
Most 1LTs that I know are pulling $80+k/year in New Jersey and living in a decently low cost region. Don’t forget that probably only 60% of that is taxed due to a sizeable portion being “Basic Allowance for Housing”.
There are very few if any career fields for a 23 year old that have as high of a “net” income. There are a few career fields where the gross income is larger than that figure but both the burnout rate and cost of living are much higher.</p>

7

<p>I love how you’re English major and you started every sentence with a lower case letter.</p>

8

<p>Become a paralegal - Big law firm paralegals regularly start out at about 40k a year, an can make 10-20k more in overtime. Even government paralegals can get 30-40k a year, with lessened overtime expectations.</p>

9

<p>"I love how you’re English major and you started every sentence with a lower case letter. "</p>

<p>I love how non-English majors always expect English majors to have this flawless grammar and sentence structure as if you do anything in college level English classes that has anything to do with grammar. (All of that is done in high school and middle school classes anyway).</p>

10

<p>An English major who can’t use proper punctuation and grammar isn’t likely to have a good GPA… making the job search that much harder.</p>

<p>Goose, the problem with teaching is that most states (rightly so) have some requirements for coursework for teachers, unless you get in through something like Teach for America or some other alternate teacher certification program (varies by state, but usually is not that easy to do). One option if the OP wants to teach is to move home after graduation (gasp!) and take ed classes someplace cheaper than UVa to become qualified to teach.</p>

11

<p>Not to mention that states are laying off teachers by the thousands right now.</p>

12

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</p>

<p>questionable</p>

13

<p>

How is it questionable? It’s happening to the left and right of me.<br>
Heck, military tables with BAH supplements are not obscure. It is verifiable via published government documents.
[OSD</a> Military Compensation Web Site](<a href=“http://militarypay.defense.gov/mpcalcs/Calculators/RMC.aspx]OSD”>http://militarypay.defense.gov/mpcalcs/Calculators/RMC.aspx)
If that’s questionable, than private sector compensation must be some super secret squirrel stuff!</p>

14

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<p>Biology does not give good job and career prospects at the bachelor’s degree level. Lots of pre-meds who majored in biology and did not get into medical school will be competing for the (not very high pay) lab tech jobs.</p>

15

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<p>your own link says that an O-1 right out of school makes roughly $50k before taxes. Not very close to “$80k+”.</p>

16

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<p>Soccerguy,</p>

<p>There are tools and there are users. Tools without a knowledgeable user are worthless.</p>

<p>This is not your fault. You aren’t in the system so I wouldn’t have expected better, but there are a few things you did wrong that would result in you getting a result that didn’t match up to mine.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Did you try all locations? I sure as heck didn’t, but I was only speaking in terms of the area of my official residence which is around NYC. BAH between a place like El Paso, TX is radically different than somewhere in Central/North New Jersey.</p></li>
<li><p>All line and paragraphs numbers on a UMR are coded for O-2. O-2 is an automatic promotion 12 months after date of commission on active duty or if you are AGR/ADOS/ADSW in the Guard/Reserves it’s an automatic promotion in 18 months. While all basic branches start off as O1, they advance to O2 relatively soon that I didn’t even consider it that much - it’s only a blink of an eye.</p></li>
<li><p>Many of those I serve with are actually previously enlisted (which they can be if they went SMP during their years in ROTC), so they would fall under O1-E or O2-E.</p></li>
</ol>

17

<p>There is an interesting thread on this over on the Parent Forum right now:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1102710-major-english.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1102710-major-english.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;