I’ll try to keep this short, and feel free to be as blunt and honest with your answer as you feel the need to be. I’m a recent college graduate from a large state school in the Southeast, and I have a Bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in writing. When I graduated from high school, at the time I wanted to be a writer, but as I’ve gotten older and realized how the world works I feel like my degree is useless. I still want to write, but more so on the side as a hobby. As of late I’ve been looking into going back to school to pursue my Master’s and/or PhD in an attempt to switch fields and create more stable job opportunities, but with a background that’s limited to English and some minor courses in journalism, marketing, and advertising, I don’t really know what my options are. I know that I can’t go into something like Engineering or chemistry without some sort of science background, but are there any options for obtaining a worthwhile Master’s with the background I have?
Also, I’ve already taken the GRE and scored very well in verbal reasoning but abysmal (in my opinion) in quantitative reasoning.
What about an MBA with a concentration on the marketing side. Great writing skills combined with an MBA would work well for jobs in advertising, public relations, marketing communications, etc. Way back in 1988 I graduated with an applied Math degree and also decided it was useless and so went back and got an MBA, and had a long and successful career in marketing (now I own my own online retail business).
Masters in teaching, Masters in Higher Ed would take an English major .
Probably MSW, MPP or MPA too if you got relevant job for a year or two first (though they might be looking for some pre-reqs first but probably not many and you could do that while applying.)
What do you WANT to do. Have you done some self exploration? Jumping into grad school w/o a level of confidence about it being the right direction could put you in the same position in a couple years – but with more debt.
Not sure when you graduated, but I suggest working for a couple of years and then applying to professional Masters program or law. (PhD is whole other ball of wax. . . ). Buy some career self help books, takes assessments, have lunch with older people whose jobs seem interesting to you and find out how they got there. Connect with your college’s career development office – they should still be willing to help you.
In the meantime, get some experience. Marketing, communications, journalism should be open to you with an English degree. And nonprofits and such are always looking for bright people to run their programs no matter the degree.
Contact your career center at your university, start-ups by fellow students may have opportunities for good writers if you don’t mind being " jack of all trades".
Some suggestions
Teaching.
Consider Communications and digital social media influencing. Maybe a certificate would suffice.
Editing websites for businesses, government, trade associations, non profits.
Maybe try software development training.
You would have to take some leveling courses, but an MBA is not out of reach. I was in the same situation some years back with a degree in communications. I went to grad school and got a masters in IT and I love what I do. I did it with no background in computers. Absolutely you can do it.