The Perks Of Being An English Major

We all know that being an English major historically guarantees job security and endless wealth, right?

In the hilarious comic below, Jacob Andrews, writer of forlackofabettercomic.com, details just exactly how great it is to be an English major. Show this to your parents the next time they question the wisdom of yet another course on Samuel Richardson.

Source: forlackofabettercomic.com

Comments

[percheron1]

11:20 PM on 08/20/2011

Wishful thinking...:rolleyes:

[corwin]

09:30 PM on 08/19/2011

I think it's an IQ thing.No one believes someone like,say, John Updike couldn't have succeeded in any field he wanted.But,no one -at least in this universe- believes it takes a first rate intellect to major in English.Why would you hire someone who may not be intelligent ? For their problem solving skills?

[Hesseth Ran]

04:07 AM on 08/19/2011

I don't think that career options for English majors are sufficiently explored and advertized by career offices. I am not sure why, but I suspect either ignorance or lack of interest (or possibly a combination thereof).

There is a decent amount of funding for the preservation of cultural heritage, which involves digitization and archival work. Every major library and museum is involved in massive digitization projects, along with micro-projects like online exhibits, digital packages of rare materials for university courses, etc. Not every single person who works on this type of project has a background in library science - most are literature, history, and art history graduates who learned the technical aspects on the job.

Don't forget auction houses and antique booksellers, who rely on experts to accurately date, attribute, and describe lots, and trace/verify their provenance. Obviously, this kind of work requires narrow specialization and more than a 4-year degree, but it's an alternative for PhDs who are not interested in the "publish or perish while teaching hundreds of undergrads" scenario. That's a field in which being able to read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, or old and middle English/French/German/any modern language is also extremely instrumental.

These are more interesting (and lucrative) options than slaving away in an assistant editor position, doing hollow journalism, or selling your soul to a PR company. You don't have to bore yourself into insanity writing technical manuals, or compromise your personal ethics by writing papers for rich kids.

[Spike5]

11:45 PM on 08/18/2011

Oh, but that English degree gave us the tools to be grammar Nazis here on H-P. I bet we are better at spelling too.

[LisaCACO]

09:47 PM on 08/18/2011

where's the comic for those of us with classical archaeology majors?

[cameron d]

12:46 PM on 08/18/2011

That's exactly what happened to me.

[3423427]

11:13 AM on 08/18/2011

Mine translated into a receptionist job, then to transfer general-ed credits for a degree program that was actually worthwhile!

[notmytime]

10:17 PM on 08/17/2011

My English degree translated to a sales job. Of the people on my sales team, 75% have English degrees, turns out, we are effective communicators!

[ESerafina42]

08:45 PM on 08/17/2011

Oh, these things are ALWAYS happening to me, except it's the guys who are lining up at my door, not the girls. In fact, President Obama called me just the other day, and I had to give him a very stern talking-to on the use of the indefinite article. :)

[jk10021]

07:54 PM on 08/17/2011

I loved every minute of being an English major. College is so great in that you can spend 4 years studying whatever you want. However, I ended up starting my career in finance because I wanted to make decent money - loved the classes and the learning, didn't love the "typical" English major career options. Still, I wouldn't trade my literature degree for any other major.

[BlackJAC]

08:23 PM on 08/17/2011

After graduating with an English degree, I signed up for a client/server design certification course.  Unfortunately the bottom fell out of the IT well shortly thereafter.

[angelcakesinc]

05:07 PM on 08/17/2011

I feel like I got screwed on my call from the president... I chose ten million books, not ten million dollars... Sigh. The things I do for a good story.

[KDMac]

04:59 PM on 08/17/2011

That is just too damn funny!