What Jobs Are Available For English Language and Literature Graduates?
A Diverse Array of Fields Employ English Majors
English degree jobs can be hard to classify compared to employment for people in Computer Science, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Normally, work requiring an English degree is confined to trades involving writing, but it can be used as a stepping stone to other fields where writing is not the primary activity. For example, the teaching and legal fields work well for people with English degrees, because teachers (and not just English teachers) who can understand sentence structure and logical thought structures can instruct students from kindergarten through college. In the legal field, a command of spelling, verb tense, and argument can go a long way toward creating legal briefs, and it can also be used to pick apart contracts or statutes in order to find loopholes or points of law. Furthermore, a literary background can be essential in public relations, where oratorical skills and flourishes may be necessary to overcome the substantive deficiencies of a client’position. English degrees also are useful for crafting content that is intended to be classified by search engines, electronic storage, and semantic algorithms. Google and Bing have invested heavily in programming that mimics the idioms and constructs of the English language, so therefore a person with an English degree can find a way into technological fields otherwise reserved for programmers and IT professionals.
Notes and Special Information
Special note: It took 5 years for the author of this content to find a job that had anything to do with his English degree.