What to Do with an English Major

After making the choice to major in English, unless you'll be teaching, people are going to wonder how you'll use your degree. In fact, after making this choice, there's a good chance that you'll be wondering how you're going to use your degree. Should you go to graduate school? Would your English degree be useful in Law school? How can you make a living off of your degree? Inevitably, you must decide what to do with it, and the stress in deciding, for many people, often causes them to reconsider whether the choice was actually worth it. So what should you do?

Create value. Value is the reason that you wanted to be an English Major, right? You were probably able to experience the value of something that someone else created in the form of literature at one point in time. This is probably what prompted you to choose the English major; you were excited to devote yourself to the study of the language and literature that gave you those feelings of joy in the first place.

As an English Major, you will cultivate excellent written and verbal communication skills. You'll know a whole lot about literature. Your question should not be how you can harness these abilities to make yourself lots of money. Actually, your question shouldn't even be how you can make yourself a living.

Your question should always be how you can use these skills to contribute value to society.

I know what you're thinking. "Wait. What? No way! The whole purpose of going to college is so that I can get a good job and make a decent living! What's all this talk about all giving and no taking?" I know. It sounds ridiculous.

But I stand by my statement nonetheless. Focus on how you can create value with your skills to contribute to society. You expect to get paid for whatever you're going to do, right? That is your goal, isn't it? Well, then it shouldn't come as any surprise to you that people aren't going to pay you for something that nobody cares about. If nobody values what you're doing, then you're probably not going to make a living out of it.

Therefore, harness your skills that you learn from your English major, and use them to create value that you can contribute to society. It could be some form of creative writing. It could be some type of article that people want to read here on Associated Content. It could be brochures for your local supermarkets or churches. Whatever you do, make sure people value it.

Notice that the first thing that most English Majors do right out of college is exactly the opposite. They don't try to sell their value that they can contribute to society; they try to sell their time to help develop somebody else's value that is being contributed to society. In short, they get a job.

I'm not saying getting a job is a bad idea. I'm just saying that selling your time might be less efficient in the long run compared with selling your own, personalized value to society. Any schmuck can hold down a job. But not every schmuck can contribute to society based on the skills that one gains in an English major. Therefore, whether it's through holding a job or through some sort of entrepreneurial enterprise on your own part, make sure that you're contributing value to society.

Ultimately, you originally wanted to be an English Major because someone else contributed something of real value to society; namely, literature. Now it's your turn to give back and motivate someone else. Contributing something of value to the lives of others is one of the most rewarding things in human existence, and your English degree is the perfect way to do this. Harness your new English powers to make others happy, and you yourself will be happy and successful.