You may have been asked these questions a
hundred times, but you may have often lacked an immediate answer.
The answer is: just about anything you want to do! An English
major prepares you for a wide variety of professions, ranging
from law to education, from medicine to business, and practically
everything in between.
Marquette English graduates
have pursued careers in advertising and public relations, consulting,
government and public service, human resource management, industry,
information systems, insurance, journalism, marketing and sales,
publishing, teaching, and telecommunications. Within each of these
categories, multiple possibilities exist. Consider advertising,
for example: if you like to write, you might want to be an advertising
copywriter. If you are imaginative and persuasive, you might want
to be a part of an advertising design team. If working with people
and meeting deadlines are your strengths, perhaps the role of
an account manager, the person responsible for planning the overall
strategy of an ad campaign, might appeal to you. In short, the
critical thinking, analytical abilities, and writing skills you
have acquired in your English classes will serve you well in nearly
every job you pursue.
The key, of course, is
deciding exactly what that job might be. William Zinsser, a writer,
editor and teacher, claims that what we want to do, we will do
well--and that what we don't want to do, we won't do well. The
possible careers for English majors are truly limitless, so your
first goal should be to put your research and analytical skills
to work to determine what it is that you might want to do—and
then learn to do it well.
