What to Do With a B.A. in English?

Recently, I was approached by a former student who was looking for advice: How can I apply my English major to a career? she asked. My immediate but honest answer: You can do anything.

Dear English majors, it’s true. By the time you graduate, you will be well-versed in the art of critical thinking and placing texts in context. You will be a practiced critic, editor, researcher, collaborator from the various writing assignments your courses (in literature, film, rhetoric, creative writing) ask you to complete. You will be a deepened human being: applying your empathetic imagination as you read your way into the hearts and minds of characters who ask you to be different from yourself, as you identify with their plights and hopes.

So, what can you do with a B.A. in English? Cornell professor Daniel Schwarz writes, “The English major opens doors through which students walk to a splendid and varied future.” Hear that?–the doors are there to open. Check out these three recent articles:

Daniel Schwarz, “What to Do With a B.A. in English”
Bruna Martinuzzi, “Why English Majors are the Hot New Hires”
Gerald Howard, “Triumph of the English Major”