Majoring in English?

[midwestdadof2]

The numbers put out by Berkley are very interesting. Be sure to click on the link.

[ucbalumnus]

Here are more University Graduate Career Surveys .

[3girls3cats]

LoremIpsum, I'm just curious now, but were you an English major? I was not but I took a number of courses and it was a rude awakening for me, a very flowery, wordy writer. The emphasis was on clarity and terse writing and I struggled to rein in my multiple subordinate clauses. I respect your experience but I also wonder at the population you saw. I never once paid to have my papers edited. If I needed help, I met with professors or TA's or asked friends to peer edit.

I was struck by the high quality of the writing at the honors reading for writing concentrators at D's college her senior year. These were the kids graduating with honors in writing so it tells me that there had to have been some sort of emphasis on clarity and quality.

I don't disagree that there are poor writers majoring in English. As I said earlier, the major tends to have fewer and easier requirements than many others and may attract those undergrads looking for an "easy" major. I don't agree that this type of flowery writing characterizes English majors, at least not those who excel at writing.

[LoremIpsum]

3girls, I majored in finance; as the child of immigrants, I was strongly encouraged to learn "something practical" in college. I took over the editorship to demonstrate managerial ability on my resume -- which delighted my news editor to no end because I didn't care about interviewing the big names visiting campus, so she got great portfolio pieces.

The papers were mostly written by students at 4-year public and private universities, with a few from a Top-20 college. I don't doubt that many of these students could be taught to write concisely, it's just that all the incentives point the other way: when you have to repeatedly write 10 and 20-page papers, you learn to embellish to fill the space required -- and throwing in the "SAT word" here and there is no different than the tendency in business and educational writing to toss in a good selection of the current hot buzzwords.

Yes, you will get English professors wise enough to train their charges to focus on quality rather than quantity, and I don't doubt that these professors would gravitate toward teaching the honors-level classes. In general, however, I think this type of concise writing in plain English tends to fall more into the domain of the journalism department rather than the English department.

[mathmom]

My first semester in college I took a political theory course. I worked hard on my papers and generally got B+'s. At some point the prof decided to make A papers available for us to read at the library so we would know what to aspire to. I read a few. They sounded like the academic writing quoted above. And that was pretty much the day I decided to be an architect. I also decided to give up trying to write A papers for that class. Instead it became a bit of a game to see how little I could do and still get a B. (It turned out that reading only 3 pages of an entire book of Nietzsche was enough.) Interesting the art history and architecture professors I had consistently praised my concise and easy to read writing style, which I learned in high school, not college.

My papers were always theoretically too short. 12-15 pages were never more than 10. 6-8 page papers usually came in at 5. It's a wonder I managed to get over 100 for my senior thesis (though I admit half of them were photos and diagrams!)

[midwestdadof2]

Thanks to everyone. I really enjoyed the discussion and the insight gained.

[travelnut]

In general, it seems that a student's post-college options will be driven not only by academic performance and references, but also by internships, outside fellowship opportunities, relevant job experience, etc. English majors may get a "bad rap", but it is really what you do with your opportunities that matters.

Our recent college grad was an English-Creative Writing major with a poly-sci minor. Multiple internships, including a funded fellowship took this student across the globe for NGO work, to Capitol Hill, to NGO communications work, to study on 3 additional campuses (2 abroad), etc. Time on campus included tutoring peers in writing, editing/writing for school paper and leadership roles in political clubs. The passion for global issues fueled the writing focus. Student is now at a top 5 grad school pursuing interests in international development after attending a small, rural, 2nd tier LAC. While grades and recs were excellent, admission would have been unlikely without the other experiences. I believe this scenario is relevant to many majors besides English. It's how you connect the dots. Career options are the next phase, but responses to apps have been good. I hope that concerned parents find this encouraging.

[Hunt]

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.

I think this is true--for example, you will have a better shot at an elite law school if you come from an elite undergrad school. English is a great major if you're interested in law--but the job market is tough now, unless you come from a top law school.

[ucbalumnus]

Originally Posted by Hunt

English is a great major if you're interested in law

English is definitely a popular pre-law major, but what makes it necessarily a better major for pre-law purposes than any other major, whether popular (e.g. political science) or not (e.g. philosophy, math, religious studies, or physics)?

[Hunt]

My experience was that law school involved a lot of close reading of texts, and I think an English major was good preparation for that. I don't think any major is particularly useful in terms of preparing you for the subject matter of law school.