Should i major in English or Journalism?

College Majors Humanities Majors
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hi i just turned 25, i live with my dad just got out of jail. should i major in english? i already have an associate of science degree i earned in 2020. I am wondering if English is a good major, I just want easy major that will get me a good job. And since I always liked English and did well in English before I figure since I’m good at it and don’t mind it it will be more likely I’ll actually finish college and more likely to get an advanced degree in it. I guess my end goal in English would be to teach English at the collegiate level and then I can have summer’s off to travel the world. Is this a good idea? Can i make 100,000 dollars per year teaching English if get an advanced degree?

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hi i just turned 25, i have an associate of science degree i got in 2020. i just want an easy degree that will help me get a good job. is journalism good?

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Your college major doesn’t necessarily determine your future career. Figure out what you like to do. Get your degree. See a career counselor at your college ASAP after you enroll…and get some guidance based on your interests

College academic positions are very very hard to come by full time. And to earn $100,000, I believe you would need years of experience, publications, and tenure.

If you love English, do that…but keep your options open regarding actual jobs.

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im already admitted to university of hosuton

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thumper i just noticed you are a speech language pathologist, im partially deaf and have hearing aids. but i dont ever wear them. do you know where i can find speech therapy for adults in the houston area?

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I sent you a message. My only free advice is…wear your hearing aids. For others reading. University of Houston has a communication sciences and disorders program, and likely has a clinic there where speech therapy services can be accessed by students. Or they will be able to give a referral if needed.

You will be a much more successful college student if you wear those aids…so you don’t miss the little details of what is being said.

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That would be like winning the lottery, to be honest. Before you invest the time and money in this venture, please read up on the academic job market. It is abysmal. Most PhDs are not able to find tenure-track jobs in their field and end up having to settle for adjuncting with low pay (think food stamps despite teaching full time) and no job security. It is a hard road to travel. Some manage it, but it will not give you $100,000 per year and the money to travel the world over summers. Some people do hit the jackpot and land a tenure track job following their PhD - but this is very far from guaranteed. You need a good deal of luck in addition to excellent preparation and a long list of academic publications.

What about teaching high school English? Maybe get a teaching credential? Public school or private school, there are various options. Depending on where you teach, you could have a decent salary.

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The average salary of an English professor is $85,000 a year or so. The median salary is lower. The majority of people with PhDs in English who gradates in the past ten years are not professors, but contingent faculty, and their median salaries are around $50,000

The field under the title of “English” is, in fact, pretty wide and diverse. It includes sub fields like rhetoric, creative writing, medieval literature, gender studies, film studies, and many more.

English is, in fact, an excellent field as a major, since the skills that you learn there are highly useful in many fields. Creative writing, rhetoric, critical analysis, etc., are all amazingly useful in every walk of life.

However, most people with English degrees make more than English Professors, and people with English PhDs who have jobs outside of academia generally make more money than those who teach at colleges.

Moreover, to do a PhD in English you would first have to do very well in your undergrad, produce some amazing pieces of work in class, as you undergraduate thesis, etc. You then would need to compete with the top undergrads in the field for the graduate positions at the top PhD programs. It’s easier to be accepted to lower ranked graduate programs, but if a person wants an academic life, that is not a good idea. The lower ranked a program is, the the smaller the percent of graduates who get academic jobs that pay a decent salary.

A PhD requires some 6 years of research on an original topic in your sub-field. So you need to love research in, say, 19th century English literature, analysis of films, or something else related to the field. Professors do not teach people to read and write English. While colleges do have ESL classes, it is all taught by non-tenured faculty, though some may be full time, and the salaries are pretty low. ESL teachers in high schools make more and have better benefits.

I mean, if you really want to do a PhD in English, go for it, but it’s not a very lucrative career choice. If you like teaching, you can earn a degree in education and teach English in high school. Better pay, better benefits, and a lot more job security.

TL;DR An undergrad degree in English is an excellent degree and many employers like hiring English majors, but an academic career in English is not worthwhile in this day and age.

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so what would be the easiest college degree with the biggest payoff then.cuz i want to make 100,000 dollars per year minimum after graduation.

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Couldn’t a criminal record be limiting in terms of teaching opportunities? (Perhaps unless one wants to teach in correctional settings where that life experience could be valuable…?)

An English degree is fine in the way that any liberal arts degree is fine - it’s a degree, and if you’re a good writer, those skills can be valuable. But it’s generally not a specifically-valuable credential in itself, above and beyond being a degree. Do you love literature and want to spend time studying that, or are you just looking for career prep based on your verbal/writing abilities?

Journalism is a rough field to break into, especially now with the landscape shifting so dramatically. And teaching at the college level… lots of people are scraping by as adjuncts, even with PhD’s.

Journalism is part of the Communications department which also offers other majors; have you considered Strategic Communication? https://publications.uh.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=44&poid=15645&returnto=15655

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i have not really considered a communication degree. i just know i need to get my life together and that if i don’t go to college it will be more dead end jobs. what should i major in.

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Perhaps. I imagine it would depend on the nature of the crime?

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This is a bit naive. If it were easy, then everyone would be doing it…Computer science and engineering probably have some of the highest starting salaries, but those are very difficult degrees and you must be highly skilled in math (whereas you seem more of a humanities person). I am not sure then that there is an easy degree that will get you $100K out of the gate. Usually it takes several years to work yourself up to that salary level. Maybe something in business/economics/finance would get you closer to the salary you want? Again, not an easy degree, though, and doesn’t seem very well aligned with your interests and strengths.

So perhaps you should simply start by asking yourself what you want to do, rather than what salary you aspire to? That might get you moving in the right direction so that you can work towards that salary in your field of interest.

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i wanted to major in business but my gpa is too low they won’t let me

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i don’t actually know what i want to do, i’ve never had a job i actually liked. the only two things i like are sex and skydiving. those are the two things that have brought me the most joy in life. i used to like playing guitar but i grew bored with it.

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A 4-year degree isn’t the only way to avoid dead end jobs - sometimes it’s not even the best way. I know people who struggled through their whole bachelor’s and then ended up going into the trades afterward. One is a glazier now and posts amazing photos from the tops of the buildings where he works. If you really want a straight shot to well-paying employment, you could consider becoming an electrician, plumber, HVAC tech, etc.

The thing with the four-year degree path is that there’s really no “easy” program that makes six-figure jobs fall into your lap. If that existed, everyone would do it! The most employable undergrad programs at UH are probably things like Construction Management in the engineering school or Supply Chain Management in the business school. With an AS, depending on your previous coursework, maybe you could still get into a program like one of those (not sure how much flexibility there is in that regard at UH), but “easy?” Not so much, although students with the right interests and aptitudes could certainly find them fun.

Journalism is one subset of communications, and not the subset with the best employment prospects. I would only recommend a Journalism major if you’re truly in love with the field and can’t see yourself doing anything else. Doesn’t really sound like that’s you. Strategic Communications leans more business-y and might give you more options.

Adding based on your most recent comments… you could always look into how much skydiving instructors get paid. Tougher to get paid for your other favorite thing legally tho…

Bottom line is it’s hard to get paid a lot for things that people would happily do for free. As they used to tell us when I was a kid, “That’s why they call it work!”

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Then you should really figure out what you want to do before you apply to finish your undergraduate. In the meantime perhaps get the credentials to be a skydiving instructor?

Teaching, BTW, is very hard work. For every hour that you stand in front of class you have to spend two hours preparing that class, you have to create, write, and grade assignments, quizzes, and exams, you have to have office hours, you have to sit on committees, you have to write reports, and you have to spend a lot of time write grant proposals. You have to deal with workplace politics, because academic workplaces are really bad at separating work from life.

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i already went to electrical school and got an electrician job and got fired after 3 days, so clearly i can’t do blue collar. plus nobody actually makes good money in electrical till after like 10 years experience. it’s clearly much better to go to college.

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i kind of just want a degree and don’t care what it is

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Meet with career counselor
And academic counselors at UH to see your strengths and weaknesses will allow you to be accepted to English or Interdisciplinary Studiees

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