Don’t Know What To Do With Your English Degree?
An English degree can guarantee you a great career if you know what you will do with it. Yet, many college graduates have a degree in English and aren’t quite sure what to do with it. Unfortunately, an English degree isn’t all that rare, so you won’t find that most employers stop in their tracks when they see that you’ve obtained such a degree.
It’s not to say that graduating with such a degree isn’t an awesome achievement, you just need to know what to do with the degree to really make it count. With an English degree you can decide if you want a desk job, or if you want to be unrestricted by a desk to really utilize your knowledge. With a little bit of motivation your degree can help take you to great places!
If English was your passion in high school and college, you’ll find that an English degree can be just what you need to get involved with the careers that you have always dreamed of. To some people, English is very boring, but to others the written word in any form is awesome. If this describes you and you have an English degree, you’ll likely find that you’ve gotten a degree that will take you to great places. If you’ve obtained an English degree and you aren’t too fond of the written word, well, you might have gone in the wrong direction in school, but you may find that there are still some great jobs for you.
The most obvious job for those with an English degree is education. If you’ve also gotten an education degree you’ll find that you can easily get a job just about anywhere you look. If you pair these degrees up with just a bit of experience, you might find that you have some really great offers that pay great, too! An English degree can get you positions with children from kindergarten through high school as well as teaching those in college. Education may not be the most glamorous use of your English degree, but you’ll find that it’s one of the most rewarding as you help people of all ages reach their dreams just as the teachers in your life helped you get where you are. If you consider using your English degree for education you might want to look around the country at where you most want to live, where you’ll receive the best pay and benefits, and where you’ll want to stay as there are often great pension and retirement benefits that go along with teaching in one state for many years.
A great employment option for is journalism or reporting. Depending on what you want to do you may also need a journalism degree, but many employers are willing to take your English degree as substitute. You can actually do the reporting and writing for papers, magazines, and books, or you can find positions in editing and critiquing. There are a lot of great things you can do in the journalism or editing business and you’ll find that you never get bored if you constantly are working on different things. Not only can you work for newspapers and magazines, you can also work for publishing companies, Internet publishing companies, as well as many other places. You might find a lot of opportunity in these areas, but it’s generally very competitive, so get ready to really sell yourself, not just your English degree, for these positions!
An English degree can be great to break into unrelated fields, as well. As you may know, many jobs just require a degree, and you’ve got that. If you realize after working with a newspaper, being an editor, or teaching that you just aren’t cut out for such jobs, you can use your degree to get an assortment of other jobs in the corporate world. Many people turn to retail because it offers a diverse working environment where you can work your way up a corporate ladder using your education, but you’re not stuck behind a desk or working with writing, editing, or other common features of English.
Instructional design is where a lot of English majors find their niche, writing classroom, safety, and instructional information for companies, technology, and just about anything you can imagine. Someone has written every safety warning, manual, or instructions for use for a new appliance, often those in the instructional design field with an English degree. If you are willing to learn and get some special certifications as well, you can find yourself working with companies on the cutting edge of technology.
Many individuals with an English degree decide to go into business for themselves because they have the drive and motivation to make something bigger and better of their English degree. Many of those that work for themselves are authors, who dedicate their time to writing books on all kinds of topics. Though some authors make a lot of money writing and are able to support themselves and become quite famous, it’s not all that common to become a household name!
Those that do want to write often freelance, writing articles and information for books, magazines, websites, doctors, schools, and just about everything you can imagine. There are many people with English degrees that enjoy working for themselves because they can set their own hours, do the work that they want to do, and really get the most out of their degree.
As you can see, you have a lot of options with an English degree. You might have started out with English because you didn’t know what else to do, but you’ll likely find it a very rewarding career choice. You can take your English degree in just about any direction and really make it work for you. So, don’t think you have to be stuck in a classroom teaching if you don’t want to be; you just have to learn how to think outside the box and make the degree fit your lifestyle!
Career Center 
