<p>I don’t see that an English major should be expected to be a particularly good writer, relative to any other humanities major. And other writing-intensive majors are perhaps more likely to be dealing in substantial content when they write.</p>
<p>Some of it depends on where you end up. My sister-in-law has a Harvard English degree, but there just isn’t much call for her skills in her part of NH. She’s had plenty of work, just not a career. Jobs that I can remember her having: School bus driver, children’s librarian, journalist, cookbook author, high school teacher, nursery school teacher, real estate developer, handy woman. I’ve probably missed a few! My other sister-in-law, also an English major, used to do arts administration, and organized a tour for a jazz group. Mostly she’s a stay at home Mom these days, but uses her skills in the PTA, to write program notes for her choir (these are so well-done other groups have asked to use them), and is pretty involved in local politics.</p>
<p>Your son is going to a liberal arts college, not a trade school.</p>
<p>[The</a> Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Century - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“The Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Century”>The Liberal Arts as Guideposts in the 21st Century)</p>
<p>LukerDad, I will read the article when I have time. Can you expand a little on your statement, “Your son is going to a liberal arts college, not a trade school”?</p>
<p>My daughter graduated from Dartmouth in 2009 as an English major. She took a few computer science classes while in college. But, more importantly she did good solid summer internships at advertising and social media firms. She took a job after graduation at one of those companies as a data miner. She just switched jobs and is currently employed by Google. My son is a senior in high school and also wants to be an English major next year. My advice to him is to take classes in all different fields preferably in “practical” areas such as computer science etc. Getting involved in college in places where he can make some good connections will help too. Good internships are key to getting a good job.</p>
<p>D2 is planning on being an English major. Anyone who has met her from 2nd grade & on has recognized that reading & writing are her passion. In a perfect world, she’d love to live in a garret and write, but DH & I have told that she will need to be employable. At 17, I don’t think she needs to know those specifics yet. She’s already identified a few places she’d like to intern along the way and I trust that she will find a path that works for her.</p>
<p>D1 started as a history major (with an Italian minor.) We kept our pieholes shut then too because the kiddo loved all things history. Lo & behold, she decided at the end of sophomore year that she needed to be employable and has now picked up a 2nd major in the business school. </p>
<p>When we toured Brown, our student guide was a senior english major, had received multiple job offers & had accepted one from Bain as an analyst. </p>
<p>The only caveat I would have is about $$$. I wouldn’t allow my kids to take out loans for softer majors, since chances are their beginning earnings will be lower than an engineer or accountant. </p>
<p>DH & I were Speech & theater majors with a concentration in broadcasting. DH has worked in human resources for almost 20 years & I ended up working in advertising, with a second career in librarianship. The road from degree to career is not usually linear. A lot of the jobs our kiddos will do don’t even exist yet; having strong reading, writing & analysis skills will always be a plus.</p>
<p>I just graduated as an English major, and I would absolutely not change what I did for the world. I’ve always loved reading and talking critically about literature, and majoring in something that fit my interests exactly made my four years at college immensely enjoyable. I loved my major classes and was able to excel: even if a professor was particularly tough, I enjoyed it enough to want to put in all of the extra effort. I developed strong relationships with professors, and did some independent research/thesis work work their guidance. That gave me a great challenge, an excellent topic for interviews, and a very strong reference. </p>
<p>I’m now working in a job I love, and my the skills I picked up are invaluable. I wouldn’t be able to do it nearly as well if I had majored in something else. (To be fair, I am working in the publishing industry, which is especially suited to my interests and skills. There are other industries out there, though. My university held a very interesting panel of former English majors who were in successful careers.)</p>
<p>I am extremely grateful that my parents let me major in something that’s considered “useless,” since they were footing the bill. I understand not every family is in the position to do that, so if it doesn’t make sense for you and your son, that’s fair–but if you can take what others would view as a “risk,” and your son truly loves the subject, I would suggest you encourage him to follow his passion. If he can feasibly double major in four years, and that would make you more comfortable, then why not do that? Studying what I loved made all the difference in my college experience.</p>
<p>You have to do what you love. . .
I was a Lit major/TESOL minor undergrad and also have an MA with the same concentrations.(Still high demand for ESL teachers.)
It is easy to get a TA position/tuition/stipend for an MA in English. But what next? Not sure if this is still true, but among my MA classmates, many who didn’t go on for PhDs became adjunct instructors–working part-time at several different colleges and making LESS than they made as TA’s. (High school teachers have better benefits and job stability, but very few schools will hire someone with an MA and no teaching certificate.) After grad school, I left classroom teaching and became an administrative assistant for a med school dept. chairman which paid fairly well and required writing/editing skills. After that I’ve been mostly a stay-at-home mom and tutor. The only subjects I tutor are MATH and test prep. (I like math, too.)
Would I be an English major again? Probably not. At least not the second time.<br>
As everyone is saying, best to have a double major or at least a minor in some math/science/tech field. Or get certified to teach.</p>
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<p>For technical writing, it is probably best to have plenty of writing intensive course work on varied subject matter, as well as some technical knowledge (i.e. math, science, and computer science). Majoring in English literature with appropriate electives can be fine for that, but is not the only way to prepare for technical writing.</p>
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<p>Yes, English literature is a popular pre-law major, but no specific major is required for pre-law. English literature is in the middle of the pack as far as LSAT scores of LSAT takers go.</p>
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<p>Be aware that, of the sciences, biology and chemistry have about as good job and career prospects at the bachelor’s degree level as English does. Computer science, applied math, and statistics are the best of the science majors in this respect, but obviously depend on strong mathematical and logical thinking skills.</p>
<p>However, someone who is strong in writing, humanistic / qualitative, and logical / quantitative skills is likely to be very adaptable to many situations.</p>
<p>The best prep for law school, IMHO, is poetry because law requires both close reading and nuanced interpretation which considers intent, context, word order, etc.</p>
<p>A degree is just a post on the road. It matters more to some than others and that is determined by personality and drive. It’s a mistake to think only of today’s jobs and careers because a person may have 3 or more careers in a life.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t philosophy be one of the better subjects for pre-law students because it includes both (a) logical thinking, and (b) consideration of opinions from various points of view?</p>
<p>Philosophy works but so does history or anything else. You study the philosophy of legal systems in law school, at least in the good ones, because every choice of laws reflects a philosophy of what is right and wrong, what is to be punished or not, etc. So for example, you study things like the model codes in criminal law that went so far as to excuse crimes that are product of a mental condition. That idea led to the social argument about poverty’s role in crime and then the responsibility of people raised in poverty for their actions. The idea continues to apply in cases like an abused person killing an abuser, etc. You can’t study bankruptcy without thinking about the philosophy of forgiving debt.</p>
<p>So yeah philosophy is useful. But reading poetry is just as useful and to me more interesting. Take something as basic as Donne’s no man is an island and the famous line do not send to know for whom the bell tolls. These imply a social contract with some form of shared responsibility. You can draw a line from no man is an island to the regulation of ultra-hazardous activities conducted on private land.</p>
<p>My D is a 2011 grad who double majored in English/Spanish. She also had 3 minors: French, Medieval/Renaissance studies and International Business. She worked for one year and has just begun her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and will pick up a Certificate in Translation Studies along the way. She is fully funded for 6 years (Fellowship), including 2 years abroad. She hopes to be a prof.</p>
<p>A liberal arts major does not, by definition, prepare a student for any specific career. If you look at those “most employable majors” lists, you will see that they are all focused on a particular narrow strand of employment. </p>
<p>This has often been said before, but employers of liberal arts grads hire the person, not the degree. Someone majoring in English has to think harder and more creatively about marketing himself to potential employers through internships, part-time work etc. than someone who is doing a specific career-track major. I think that is the reason many liberal arts degrees are considered bad bets for immediate employment after college; students assume their degree in and of itself will open doors for them, and that’s not the case. </p>
<p>Former English majors work in HR, marketing, corporate communications, and as paralegals. It can help to demonstrate some comfort with numbers by minoring in a quantitative field of some sort.</p>
<p>I think it is very difficult for a pure Engish major to get in the door for interviews beyond jobs directly related to English (eg, teacher, editor, etc.). For all that Wall Street says they would hire them in a minute, they would never get past HR to the Wall Street hiring manager’s desk.</p>
<p>My D2 loves English and Studio Art, but knows that she probably can’t earn a living at either. Have also told her she can’t count on driving a cab, either, as her driving skills are terrible. 
She is thinking of majoring in something else (math or physics, which she also loves), and minoring or double majoring in either art or English. I must say I am somewhat frustrated at a number of LACs that do not have “minors” – examples are Carleton, Reed, and Williams. I think part of the point of an LAC is a broad education, and allowing kids to pursue more than one academic passion seems like part of that. A double major is sort of all consuming, shutting out most other academic exploration from what I can tell. :(</p>
<p>OP, you certainly can (and maybe should) encourage your son to add a second major or minor in something more “marketable”. But letting him decide what that is would be best, since he has to live with the results. And those saying that bio and chem are not too marketable these days are unfortunately correct.</p>
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<p>Some do, such as the use of applied math and statistics majors to prepare for finance or actuarial jobs and careers. Also, many students choose liberal arts majors for pre-professional reasons like:</p>
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<li>Economics as a substitute business major</li>
<li>Biology as a pre-med major (even though pre-med does not require a specific major)</li>
<li>Political science or English as a pre-law major (even though pre-law does not require a specific major)</li>
<li>Any major as preparation for graduate school and academic or research career in the subject</li>
<li>Any major as preparation for teaching that subject in high school after getting the teaching credential</li>
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<p>Double majoring in (for example) English and math may be a way to practice both modes of thought (qualitative and quantitative), which could be useful in many situations, though it is not obvious whether employers would see it that way in the hiring process (if they were not looking for someone with one of those specific majors).</p>
<p>I was an English major. I was also the Manager of Technical Publications at what was, at the time, the 20th largest software company in the US. </p>
<p>I’ve been the Manager of Corporate Communications at another company, and a technical writer, and a customer education specialist, and a Market Research and Communications Consultant at an MIS consulting firm. Back when I had an actual career. :)</p>
<p>Key point: there is a big difference in the employability of an English major from a truly elite school and an English major from a lower level school. Like it or not.</p>
<h1>37 I should have said “one specific career” instead of “any specific career.” I am contrasting liberal arts degrees to those such as nursing or accounting.</h1>
<p>Son graduated from Penn in 2010 as an English major and economics minor. In a horrible job market, he landed a good business analyst job with a major corporation in a fun city. He did have really good work experience (marketing intern and paralegal). I was surprised that he got a job. Whew.
He was also a recruited runner, OP. good luck to your son with his college running!</p>