Career Seeking
What Can You Do with an English Major?
10 years. Really?
• Technical Writing
• Corporate Communications
• Information Management
• Communication Strategies
Business World
It is better to crush than to be loved.
• Whitewater World
• Improving Efficiencies
• Adding Value
• Human Resources
• Work-Life Balance
• 2 week notice
Unique Contribution
The Invaluable English Major
• We are explorers of human meaningmaking.
• We are story-tellers reflecting back to the
world its own definition of humanity.
• We are creators who find sense in
paradoxes, unanswered questions, and
unyielding curiosity.
• We learn the satisfactions and wonder of
a passionately and skillfully rendered
poem, novel, or single sentence.
• We embrace ambiguity as stability, for we
know we live in an ambiguous world.
• We are of human meaning-making.
explorers
• We are story-tellers reflecting back to the
world its own definition of humanity.
• We are who find sense in paradoxes
unreators answered questions, and
unyielding curiosity.
• We learn the satisfactions and wonder of
a passionately and skillfully rendered
poem, novel, or single sentence
• We embrace ambiguity as stability, for we
know we live in an ambiguous world.
Do we have a Monopoly?
Distinctive, high-demand
competencies:
• critical thinking, creativity,
interpretation, verbal dexterity,
persuasiveness, precision,
clarity, empathy, and more.
• Professional writers vs.
professionals who write
Be the Solution
• Mit Romney
• Conan O’Brien
• Barbara Walters
• Justice Clarence Thomas
• Sigourney Weaver
• Matt Damon
• Statistically, no one sticks to
their field anyway.
• Get a degree that really prepares
you for Machiavellian business.
• Skillfully render ambiguity,
meaning-making, and paradox.
• Define, stabilize, and scope out
unanswered business problems.
Four Recommendations
• Quantify how many pages you
wrote, student projects you
completed, English classes you
took in one semester.
Four Recommendations
• Remember the names of your
English peers and meet students
in other departments. That is
your network.
Four Recommendations
• Obtain professional writing
samples that showcase your
capacity to analyze ambiguity
and paradox.
(Learn to create a professional portfolio…unlike this one.)
Four Recommendations
• Develop technical skills and
learn computer software to
increase your value to the
workplace.
Four Recommendations
• Quantify how many pages you
• Obtain professional writing
wrote, student projects you
samples that showcase your
completed, English classes you
capacity to analyze ambiguity
took in one semester.
and paradox.
• Remember the names of your
• Develop technical skills and
English peers and meet students
learn computer software to
in other departments. That is
increase your value to the
your network.
workplace.