by Brandon Varner
After announcing to someone that you have chosen to major in English, the reply is usually an inquiry about the student’s plans for teaching.
Well-meaning relatives and strangers you interact with on the street assume that once you have your B.A. In English, you are prepared to spend the rest of your life teaching at some level, or getting involved in academia. The idea of the English major as a teacher only is not only outdated, but unrealistic in today’s society, where the salary for teachers dwindles and the job market is so very unforgiving. In this article, I have highlighted only two of the many options available to new grads.
Music Editor
Benjamin Lukoff was the music editor for Amazon.com, an indexer for Microsoft’s Encarta, and is now an editor for Seattle Children’s Hospital. His duties included, but were not limited to writing music reviews, suggesting new music that was prominently displayed, and being the website’s copy editor for that specific section. He received his M.A. in English before getting a job at Amazon as a proof-reader through an ad in the newspaper. Lukoff does not specifically cite his degree as an English major as helping him eventually land the job as the music editor, but he undoubtedly was able to use the skills that he had picked up in the program in order to give himself a leg up on the competition.
In an interview Lukoff had with Sell Out Your Soul.com, his advice was for people looking to find a job in any form of professional writing to have demonstrable work in the field that they’ve done, even something as relatively benign as work on a student journal.
It’s important for anyone trying to get into a field such as Music Editing, or really any sort of lifestyle curating position at a magazine or website, to have a strong and well-rounded knowledge of the segment that they are attempting to capture. Whether that be something in media like music or film, or even a more broad sort of local happenings list and reviews of events that one can attend or previews of those one may attend. One of the most hackneyed sayings that people in creative writing have heard quite a bit is “write what you know,” and outside of the creative writing setting, this is very valuable in the world of Editing.
Web Developer
Many English majors have gotten into the world of web development (or webdev for short). As someone that has done a bit of programming myself, I can say that it is a job that requires a fair amount of trial and error. Equally important is the ability to spend what may seem like a protracted period of time reading many lines of code, which requires one to have the patience and skills of interpretation and forming connections that can be unconsciously honed while studying literature.
The process of becoming a web developer may seem exceptionally murky. There is a built-in career path available to those that have chosen the Management Information Systems and Computer Science degree tracks. However, there is not an exact degree requirement in coding, and it’s a skill one can actually learn for free from websites like CodeAcademy.com.
Many employers will love potential employees that are capable of creating content for websites as well. Despite the fact that many larger companies will have their own PR agent, there is still a niche in coding for smaller design houses that cater to companies that may be receiving their first professional website.
In Conclusion
There are many exciting fields that are open to an English major. The possibilities may seem almost limitless, which can be exciting. Teaching is an exceptionally noble profession. However, it would be a shame if every English major went into the field of teaching without the knowledge that it is possible to branch out and write one’s own narrative.
