It is important for all college students to find an internship or job that they feel is relevant to their major. These can be important in helping someone find what they want to do with their degree post-graduation.
This is especially true for English majors, given how vague the career options for English majors can be and how varied the skills possessed by them tend to be. That is why in September of 2016, I applied for and accepted an internship with a local mobile game development company: Random Logic Games.
Random Logic Games is a game development company based in Birmingham, Alabama and founded by alumni of UAB. One of its alumni is even a former English major. Their games are, as the name implies, mostly logic and thought-based.
But why would the field of software/game development need English majors, and what could English majors really contribute to this field? At the time, reaching out to them for an internship seemed a bit odd and I did not believe I could really have a place at something even vaguely tech-related.
My main responsibility during this internship was writing up the descriptions of apps they published in the App Store or Google Play Store, and testing out the apps in question. There were also a few times when I was instructed to write and schedule posts for social media, or compile data for usage in one of the company’s apps.
This is a good example of what English majors could expect to be doing when coming into the software development field, unless they have some other form of experience that may be deemed more useful. Much of it fell into the realm of marketing, a field that many professional writers may find themselves thrust into.
This internship served as a good look into what English majors can contribute to the tech field. While they may lack the technical skills possessed by those who studied or specialize in the field, they can contribute their writing and reading skills to help those in the tech or software industries promote or improve their products. More English students should seek out these types of internships so as to get an idea of what they can do after graduation.
