What DO You Do With a BA in English (or Other Liberal Arts)?
February 25, 2022 11:34 AM Subscribe
You have an English (or liberal arts or humanities) degree. Maybe several. What is your job and what was the career path you took getting there?
I hope this isn’t too chatfiltery.
I’ve posted a bunch of questions about difficulties with the job search. I continue to feel stuck, but rather than ask for advice, I’m looking for anecdotes. The list of typical jobs for English graduates feels, for various reasons, terribly narrow (or maybe I'm getting bad intel). I'm curious what else* is out there for folks with a similar educational background, so I turn to the hive-mind.
If you graduated with a degree in English or a similar program in the liberal arts/humanities without a clear trajectory for what to do professionally, what was your first job upon finishing college? How did you get it? What kinds of jobs did you take from there and what are you doing now? Do the skills from your undergrad experience continue to serve you, or has the on-the-job experience superseded them?
Though I understand the market is particularly screwy at the moment (and things are always in flux), I’m asking to get a sense of the possibilities, however unlikely or idiosyncratic those may be.
*I've taught college for over ten years, and I'm over that scene. Editorial work, journalism, and marketing are already on my radar.
I hope this isn’t too chatfiltery.
I’ve posted a bunch of questions about difficulties with the job search. I continue to feel stuck, but rather than ask for advice, I’m looking for anecdotes. The list of typical jobs for English graduates feels, for various reasons, terribly narrow (or maybe I'm getting bad intel). I'm curious what else* is out there for folks with a similar educational background, so I turn to the hive-mind.
If you graduated with a degree in English or a similar program in the liberal arts/humanities without a clear trajectory for what to do professionally, what was your first job upon finishing college? How did you get it? What kinds of jobs did you take from there and what are you doing now? Do the skills from your undergrad experience continue to serve you, or has the on-the-job experience superseded them?
Though I understand the market is particularly screwy at the moment (and things are always in flux), I’m asking to get a sense of the possibilities, however unlikely or idiosyncratic those may be.
*I've taught college for over ten years, and I'm over that scene. Editorial work, journalism, and marketing are already on my radar.
Academia and then law
posted by ASlackerPestersMums at 11:42 AM on February 25, 2022
posted by ASlackerPestersMums at 11:42 AM on February 25, 2022
I'm a lawyer with a B.A. in English. Right out of college, I worked as an editor for an educational publisher that you've probably heard of if you're GenX or older. I eventually resigned from that position because I had the boss from hell, and worked as a freelance researcher for the same company while I got a paralegal certificate from NYU. After that, I applied for a job as a paralegal at another publisher you've definitely heard of; I got the job through an ad in the New York Times, believe it or not. I worked at that publisher in the contracts department for two years before I left to go to law school. After law school, I worked for a couple of different large firms, and now I work in a supervisory position(supervising other lawyers) for the New York State court system.
I would guess I do use my skills from undergrad, since my job now is pretty much all writing and editing. I could have done the same thing with a degree in government or history; any liberal arts degree teaches you how to write and how to analyze complex issues.
posted by holborne at 11:43 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would guess I do use my skills from undergrad, since my job now is pretty much all writing and editing. I could have done the same thing with a degree in government or history; any liberal arts degree teaches you how to write and how to analyze complex issues.
posted by holborne at 11:43 AM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nonprofit fundraising. My degree was helpful because it taught me how to write and edit well, which is a skill in short supply among fundraisers that are, as a larger group, also in very short supply. My route to this career was through an internship at a nonprofit whose cause I was interested in, and then an entry level department assistant kind of job for the fundraising department at another organization.
The list of typical jobs for English graduates feels, for various reasons, terribly narrow (or maybe I'm getting bad intel)
Maybe you are thinking too narrowly? You can literally do any job for which a bachelors degree and minimal office experience is a basic qualification. The subject of your degree doesn't have to narrow the possibilities.
Given that you have over 10 years of experience doing something, though, there ought to be a way to leverage that.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:47 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
The list of typical jobs for English graduates feels, for various reasons, terribly narrow (or maybe I'm getting bad intel)
Maybe you are thinking too narrowly? You can literally do any job for which a bachelors degree and minimal office experience is a basic qualification. The subject of your degree doesn't have to narrow the possibilities.
Given that you have over 10 years of experience doing something, though, there ought to be a way to leverage that.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:47 AM on February 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
I went from getting my BA in English to a job in publishing where I did a lot of quality control and proofreading. I eventually ended up on the design end of things; now doing graphic design. My degree still helps because I'm a designer who can provide an extra set of eyes on content.
Technical writing is another path worth considering if that interests you.
posted by hydra77 at 11:54 AM on February 25, 2022
Technical writing is another path worth considering if that interests you.
posted by hydra77 at 11:54 AM on February 25, 2022
I was a reporter during college (turned an internship into a paying job), then got laid off a few months after graduation. Then ended up as yet another clerical worker and have been stuck in that role ever since.
I don't know if I'd say to focus on the "English major" thing in your life. Part of why I can't get anywhere is that everything is very pigeonholed these days and you pretty much have to have already done a job (or at least something similar) to get another job. If teaching has been your primary activity for ten years, I'd probably say to look for more teaching or teaching-adjacent or turning yourself into a corporate trainer who teaches people how to teach classes. Leverage that "I know how to teach" skillset into something related but not quite college students in the classroom.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:56 AM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't know if I'd say to focus on the "English major" thing in your life. Part of why I can't get anywhere is that everything is very pigeonholed these days and you pretty much have to have already done a job (or at least something similar) to get another job. If teaching has been your primary activity for ten years, I'd probably say to look for more teaching or teaching-adjacent or turning yourself into a corporate trainer who teaches people how to teach classes. Leverage that "I know how to teach" skillset into something related but not quite college students in the classroom.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:56 AM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
You don’t even need to limit yourself to jobs that require a bachelor’s degree. My HR manager has an associate’s degree in something medical. We’re a retail business. She worked as a cashier during school, then moved into management, then transitioned into HR when we couldn’t hire anyone with a real HR background.
I have a philosophy degree and am currently a bookkeeper through a similar path. I hope to go grad school for something quantitative. I encourage you to think about your skills and interests more broadly. Do you think you are cut out for management? You can manage people anywhere.
posted by Comet Bug at 12:00 PM on February 25, 2022
I have a philosophy degree and am currently a bookkeeper through a similar path. I hope to go grad school for something quantitative. I encourage you to think about your skills and interests more broadly. Do you think you are cut out for management? You can manage people anywhere.
posted by Comet Bug at 12:00 PM on February 25, 2022
English (Literature) BA here. I'm going to be an extreme outlier, I suspect, but here goes.
While in college (Boston), I got an internship at a respected indie record label and spent a few years hanging out there while trying to get my own music career going. That was super-useful in learning all the various kinds of writing involved in marketing, publicity, internal and external relations. I didn't stick around because I was becoming a bit of an arrogant ass when my own music started getting attention. Plus, it was a two-hour commute by public rail and I didn't have a car.
My first job out of college was at an alternative weekly newspaper (back when those existed). I started off answering phones because I lacked the self-esteem to go straight for a writing job. Ended up freelancing for the music department pretty quickly by making friends. Got a few bylines under my belt and then quit (again) to go pursue my own music career (again). Made records, toured around, all that, for a few years. Eventually realized the music industry itself was slowly killing my love of music.
After that, I spent a few years casting about in the wilderness before realizing that public radio was the solution to my particular situation. It was the perfect marriage of my studio/engineering expertise and my critical thinking and writing skills. (This was before podcasts, so even that landscape was pretty different.) I moved to LA and spent almost a decade producing radio dramas, of all things, before making the leap over to a major-league public radio station through some personal relationships I'd built up. I worked my way up to Senior Producer, and I'm blessed to have found a place that resonates with all my kooky/brainy ideas.
I attribute so much of what I do now to the intellectual and creative rigor I built up as an English major! Those interpretive skills can go in limitless directions, I think. It just depends on how and where you choose to apply it. For me, it was music. For you, something else?
posted by mykescipark at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
While in college (Boston), I got an internship at a respected indie record label and spent a few years hanging out there while trying to get my own music career going. That was super-useful in learning all the various kinds of writing involved in marketing, publicity, internal and external relations. I didn't stick around because I was becoming a bit of an arrogant ass when my own music started getting attention. Plus, it was a two-hour commute by public rail and I didn't have a car.
My first job out of college was at an alternative weekly newspaper (back when those existed). I started off answering phones because I lacked the self-esteem to go straight for a writing job. Ended up freelancing for the music department pretty quickly by making friends. Got a few bylines under my belt and then quit (again) to go pursue my own music career (again). Made records, toured around, all that, for a few years. Eventually realized the music industry itself was slowly killing my love of music.
After that, I spent a few years casting about in the wilderness before realizing that public radio was the solution to my particular situation. It was the perfect marriage of my studio/engineering expertise and my critical thinking and writing skills. (This was before podcasts, so even that landscape was pretty different.) I moved to LA and spent almost a decade producing radio dramas, of all things, before making the leap over to a major-league public radio station through some personal relationships I'd built up. I worked my way up to Senior Producer, and I'm blessed to have found a place that resonates with all my kooky/brainy ideas.
I attribute so much of what I do now to the intellectual and creative rigor I built up as an English major! Those interpretive skills can go in limitless directions, I think. It just depends on how and where you choose to apply it. For me, it was music. For you, something else?
posted by mykescipark at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have a BA in English! I spent a year after college waitressing and nannying, then went to grad school for information science, with a particular interest in literary archives. This was a direct result of my experiences with archives in undergrad. I had a student job in a museum in grad school and get more interested in that kind of work, which led to a stint in an art restoration studio, which led to my current job as a fine art consultant for an insurance company (good pay & benefits for an arts job!) I use my skills in writing, analyzing, and critical thinking, all honed during my undergrad years, every day. I’m also a published poet, thanks very much to my undergrad coursework.
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:04 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
BA in English, creative writing focus, and a second major in film production. I also was editor of my college's paper and had learned some graphic/web design as a result.
First job out of college was marketing/graphic design for an independent movie theatre. Then I went to a government job in communications managing their website (it should be noted this was circa 2001, when formal programs in web stuff were few and far between still), which eventually turned into a stint as a UI designer in their software development department.
After that, I got a job in a university English department managing a program that had audio/video production in it. And then eventually a university level job managing a similar program.
Three of those actually listed BA in English as preferred in the job descriptions.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 12:06 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
First job out of college was marketing/graphic design for an independent movie theatre. Then I went to a government job in communications managing their website (it should be noted this was circa 2001, when formal programs in web stuff were few and far between still), which eventually turned into a stint as a UI designer in their software development department.
After that, I got a job in a university English department managing a program that had audio/video production in it. And then eventually a university level job managing a similar program.
Three of those actually listed BA in English as preferred in the job descriptions.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 12:06 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I did my BA in English, went on to do my MA, and then I went to law school. I am a lawyer, only doing paperwork.
If I had to do it over, I would not do law school again. I would try for library school, or get into advertising.
Seriously, don't be a lawyer. Those lawyers who tell you not to go to law school, we're not joking.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:07 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
If I had to do it over, I would not do law school again. I would try for library school, or get into advertising.
Seriously, don't be a lawyer. Those lawyers who tell you not to go to law school, we're not joking.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:07 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
I have a film theory degree from the mid-00s. After a post-graduation year of aimlessly working part-time jobs of various sorts (field service for a company that leased computers to local government; excel wrangling for a consulting company; assorted one-off indie film/video gigs), I decided to apply for a graduate in a media/arts/computing program. I applied for an MA but was convinced to go for a Ph.D instead. The program sucked for me, and I ended up leaving ABD after 6 years with a masters-in-passing and six years of experience hacking around on 3d rendering software in Java and later Unity to make progress on dissertation-related things (but didn't end up actually writing the dissertation, just a pile of code my former university owned). I was able to parlay my Unity experience into a gig working at another university as support staff in a lab studying human perception in VR, and from there I moved to a startup doing XR, to a senior IC role at a large company doing more general software.
posted by Alterscape at 12:10 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by Alterscape at 12:10 PM on February 25, 2022
I majored in journalism and now work in film distribution. I was lucky enough to get offered a full-time job from a former internship when I graduated college, and I've worked in the field ever since. It's interesting that you consider the options for an English major to be narrow, because to me the options for humanities majors are sort of infinite? I've also found that nobody in professional settings really cares what you majored in (or if you majored in English) once you're a year or two out of school.
posted by cakelite at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by cakelite at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I had a few friends with that background - One friend with a PhD in English became a professor. 2 friends with Masters in English Literature where one became a doctor and the other is a purchaser for a library supply company. The few with BAs did random secretarial and/or administration jobs.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022
BA, Journalism. After graduation, marketing/research/communications, which evolved into web-stuff in the mid-90s, before a pivot into IT which has lasted until the present day. The IT phase went from admin/technical sales/technical sales management.
That first marketing/research job was something of a fluke - a firm was doing customer-focus work in "converged technologies." I took part in the study, struck up a conversation on the topic (which we had just studied in the context of the CATV industry), and was offered part-time work helping finish the project out. Got hired full-time after I graduated.
posted by jquinby at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022
That first marketing/research job was something of a fluke - a firm was doing customer-focus work in "converged technologies." I took part in the study, struck up a conversation on the topic (which we had just studied in the context of the CATV industry), and was offered part-time work helping finish the project out. Got hired full-time after I graduated.
posted by jquinby at 12:12 PM on February 25, 2022
BA in Theater Studies, went into PR, hated it, segued into advertising. Started as a copywriting intern, now I'm a creative director.
posted by Mchelly at 12:14 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mchelly at 12:14 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I graduated with a BA in English & Communications / Journalism in the late 90s. I had "discovered" computers with two years to go, so my first job was doing tech support and computer maintenance in a community college's writing lab.
That lasted a hot minute and then I got a job with a startup doing "marketing" (I put that in quotes because it was not what you'd consider marketing now, but it's what the founder thought of as marketing...) and then when the startup started going south I jumped to freelance writing about tech topics.
Did that a few years, and then got a job in advanced support with a hosting company. Then I got a staff job editing and writing. Was briefly EIC of a print magazine I'd written for a long time, but print was struggling a lot.
Then I did a stint as a community manager for a major FOSS project, and then went back to freelancing for a few years.
After that I joined a company as what you'd probably call a developer relations job, but the term wasn't in popular use then (if at all).
From there I joined another major open source software vendor and have bounced from its open source program office to product marketing to communications and content.
The common feature throughout - at least since the early 2000s - has been the ability to write well and convey coherent narratives / tell stories about the projects or products I've worked with. That's where the background in Lit has helped, a lot.
So: Possibilities - there are loads of jobs that need people who can write and are adaptable. Product Marketing and Tech Marketing are fairly lucrative if you have an interest and are willing to do the big corp thing.
posted by jzb at 12:17 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
That lasted a hot minute and then I got a job with a startup doing "marketing" (I put that in quotes because it was not what you'd consider marketing now, but it's what the founder thought of as marketing...) and then when the startup started going south I jumped to freelance writing about tech topics.
Did that a few years, and then got a job in advanced support with a hosting company. Then I got a staff job editing and writing. Was briefly EIC of a print magazine I'd written for a long time, but print was struggling a lot.
Then I did a stint as a community manager for a major FOSS project, and then went back to freelancing for a few years.
After that I joined a company as what you'd probably call a developer relations job, but the term wasn't in popular use then (if at all).
From there I joined another major open source software vendor and have bounced from its open source program office to product marketing to communications and content.
The common feature throughout - at least since the early 2000s - has been the ability to write well and convey coherent narratives / tell stories about the projects or products I've worked with. That's where the background in Lit has helped, a lot.
So: Possibilities - there are loads of jobs that need people who can write and are adaptable. Product Marketing and Tech Marketing are fairly lucrative if you have an interest and are willing to do the big corp thing.
posted by jzb at 12:17 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm a technical product manager for a platform engineering team now. It was a hustle to get here from a degree in English lit but I love it
posted by coldbabyshrimp at 12:18 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by coldbabyshrimp at 12:18 PM on February 25, 2022
Another lawyer here. The analytic skills from an English degree are useful in that career.
Depending on the sort of law one does, a lot of the job is telling people what the words they have written down in a contract actually mean.
I don’t hate being a lawyer, but if I had my time again, I would have gone down a different route, but saw many of my fellow English graduates struggling to find a career path.
posted by JJZByBffqU at 12:19 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Depending on the sort of law one does, a lot of the job is telling people what the words they have written down in a contract actually mean.
I don’t hate being a lawyer, but if I had my time again, I would have gone down a different route, but saw many of my fellow English graduates struggling to find a career path.
posted by JJZByBffqU at 12:19 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm a technical writer. My degree is in Liberal Arts / Linguistics.
After graduation, I happened to be in the right place at the right time - and had the knowledge - to be an early-days front-end web developer through until 2012. At that point the industry had changed, "web producer" had split into code-only web developer, content-only content marketing writer/manager, and UX/UI. I had written the procedures for most groups that I was part of, and had the samples, so I jumped ship into technical writing. I'm currently writing developer-facing documentation (API and SDK, security, etc.)
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 12:20 PM on February 25, 2022
After graduation, I happened to be in the right place at the right time - and had the knowledge - to be an early-days front-end web developer through until 2012. At that point the industry had changed, "web producer" had split into code-only web developer, content-only content marketing writer/manager, and UX/UI. I had written the procedures for most groups that I was part of, and had the samples, so I jumped ship into technical writing. I'm currently writing developer-facing documentation (API and SDK, security, etc.)
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 12:20 PM on February 25, 2022
I have a BA in English. I started out as a technical writer, then eventually transitioned to product marketing.
posted by neushoorn at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by neushoorn at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2022
BA in English, work in Regulatory/Legal Compliance field for insurance company.
posted by acantha at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by acantha at 12:23 PM on February 25, 2022
BA and MA in English. First jobs were admin assistant, tech writer and teaching.
Software QA for the past 16 years. I got my start by answering an add placed by an outsource software testing company. The company trained me, the rest is history. I love my job. I also feel like I was in the right place at the right time.
All the reading and writing has been incredibly valuable for communicating with product owners, developers, technical writers.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:33 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Software QA for the past 16 years. I got my start by answering an add placed by an outsource software testing company. The company trained me, the rest is history. I love my job. I also feel like I was in the right place at the right time.
All the reading and writing has been incredibly valuable for communicating with product owners, developers, technical writers.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:33 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can literally do anything you want to do that doesn't require specific technical and/or scientific skills (and even those you can do with a little more training). The best social worker I know has an English undergraduate. You're feeling stuck because when the whole world is your oyster, it's hard to pick a cracker.
Just to pick one example, go on indeed.com and search for project management or case manager. You're going to find wide range of jobs, some of which require BSWs or project management certificates, but many of which say things like "Education: Bachelor's (Preferred)" (pulled off a real job ad, just now). So many jobs just want you to show that you can walk, talk, manage a long term project, turn deliverables in by deadlines, and not run with scissors around the other children. Good look at local universities around you and the bevy of administrative and student services jobs that want a degree of some kind, but don't care what. No one ever says "you know, I think I'd like to be the application coordinator for the institutional review board at my local state u" but that's a real job that pays good money and has good benefits.
So start poking at indeed and similar job engines, put in keywords for things that might interest you, and just keep poking around. Apply for anything that sounds interesting. You never know what might bite.
(I am not degreed in English, but I teach and advise in an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program and have some version of this conversation about three days a week.)
posted by joycehealy at 12:35 PM on February 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
Just to pick one example, go on indeed.com and search for project management or case manager. You're going to find wide range of jobs, some of which require BSWs or project management certificates, but many of which say things like "Education: Bachelor's (Preferred)" (pulled off a real job ad, just now). So many jobs just want you to show that you can walk, talk, manage a long term project, turn deliverables in by deadlines, and not run with scissors around the other children. Good look at local universities around you and the bevy of administrative and student services jobs that want a degree of some kind, but don't care what. No one ever says "you know, I think I'd like to be the application coordinator for the institutional review board at my local state u" but that's a real job that pays good money and has good benefits.
So start poking at indeed and similar job engines, put in keywords for things that might interest you, and just keep poking around. Apply for anything that sounds interesting. You never know what might bite.
(I am not degreed in English, but I teach and advise in an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program and have some version of this conversation about three days a week.)
posted by joycehealy at 12:35 PM on February 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
I graduated with a Liberal Arts BA in Communications in '95. A wishy washy internet-less degree, but a degree nonetheless.
TL;DR - my work life has consisted of getting a job that has nothing to do with my degree, learning some new things, using those new things to get another, better, job where I could learn more new things. Take those skills to the next job, learn more, get better, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Here's what I said above, fleshed out more:
My first job out of college was FT at the retail sales job I worked while in college, then I hopped into a better sales job. I knew sales was not for me. I got a job as an admin assistant at a publishing company, where I learned MS Office on the job strictly from help files. I taught myself HTML while there because the publications needed to be put online and I had spare time. I was also 'good at computers' (aka: read the help files) and ended up doing light IT help desk work there too.
When that job became toxic (let's give the admin web work and IT work and not pay her any more than her pittance admin salary!) I took my skills and scored a job at a newspaper working on their website. The web changed a lot in the 12 years I was there, so I ended up learning ad sales and trafficking, some graphic design, some budgeting, some management of staff, some coding, some project management, some report-writing. I then hopped to my current job at a nonprofit working with their database and various software.
Now I'm into building reports, light data analysis, some membership outreach programs, and because I'm 'good with tech' (again, I read help files and Google my questions), I've positioned myself into being the onsite expert of our Association Management System. I pushed myself to get a professional certification, I volunteer for another association, and when I'm ready for a new job, I'll have a whack of new skills to take with me.
The best skills I took with me from my degree are reading comprehension and the ability to summarize what I've read for other people. Some people really really don't ever want to read and are thankful to have someone else willing to do that for them. Who/What/When/Why/How questions are the framework for every email and proposal that I write.
posted by kimberussell at 12:37 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
TL;DR - my work life has consisted of getting a job that has nothing to do with my degree, learning some new things, using those new things to get another, better, job where I could learn more new things. Take those skills to the next job, learn more, get better, repeat, repeat, repeat.
Here's what I said above, fleshed out more:
My first job out of college was FT at the retail sales job I worked while in college, then I hopped into a better sales job. I knew sales was not for me. I got a job as an admin assistant at a publishing company, where I learned MS Office on the job strictly from help files. I taught myself HTML while there because the publications needed to be put online and I had spare time. I was also 'good at computers' (aka: read the help files) and ended up doing light IT help desk work there too.
When that job became toxic (let's give the admin web work and IT work and not pay her any more than her pittance admin salary!) I took my skills and scored a job at a newspaper working on their website. The web changed a lot in the 12 years I was there, so I ended up learning ad sales and trafficking, some graphic design, some budgeting, some management of staff, some coding, some project management, some report-writing. I then hopped to my current job at a nonprofit working with their database and various software.
Now I'm into building reports, light data analysis, some membership outreach programs, and because I'm 'good with tech' (again, I read help files and Google my questions), I've positioned myself into being the onsite expert of our Association Management System. I pushed myself to get a professional certification, I volunteer for another association, and when I'm ready for a new job, I'll have a whack of new skills to take with me.
The best skills I took with me from my degree are reading comprehension and the ability to summarize what I've read for other people. Some people really really don't ever want to read and are thankful to have someone else willing to do that for them. Who/What/When/Why/How questions are the framework for every email and proposal that I write.
posted by kimberussell at 12:37 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
BA in History. I am a project manager now. I got into project management because someone smarter than me, who was quite kind, observed that I had the natural skills to be a PM and she helped me get a job.
Agree very much with joycehealy above - a liberal arts degree means you can learn, you can write, you can communicate -- you can do almost anything. I learned to project manage because I wanted to run a community theater.
posted by Medieval Maven at 12:40 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Agree very much with joycehealy above - a liberal arts degree means you can learn, you can write, you can communicate -- you can do almost anything. I learned to project manage because I wanted to run a community theater.
posted by Medieval Maven at 12:40 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
No one ever says "you know, I think I'd like to be the application coordinator for the institutional review board at my local state u" but that's a real job that pays good money and has good benefits.
My hands got ahead of my brain and I missed the edit window; that should have said "no one ever says..." when they're growing up. Plenty of folks say that as adults. Much love to my IRB folks! (especially as I submit my next app...)
posted by joycehealy at 12:45 PM on February 25, 2022
My hands got ahead of my brain and I missed the edit window; that should have said "no one ever says..." when they're growing up. Plenty of folks say that as adults. Much love to my IRB folks! (especially as I submit my next app...)
posted by joycehealy at 12:45 PM on February 25, 2022
BFA in theater with a minor in creative writing.
The "path to where I am" actually started in college when I realized that "hang on, shit, I'm studying acting but I'm way better at being a stage manager", and then I did a lot of temp work while trying to support the theater gigs. Secretarial work uses the same brain energy as a stage manager does so it was a good fit.
I kept on that track for the next 30 years, with 10 years of simultaneous theater work, and occasional flirtations with production assistant for a TV company, sales assistant for a mortgage broker, and HR assistant for an NGO, and just this second I was formally promoted to the role of "Office Manager" where I am (the actual role is more like a hybrid of that and facilities manager, but as my boss said "really it's like you're the stage manager" and he's right).
I can also offer my boss, HIS boss, and the head of HR here -
* Two people who studied theater; one went into theatrical production and one was (and still is) a director, and now are the CEO and the head of HR respectively for a tech/manufacturing company.
* My boss studied photography, and is now Chief Operating Officer.
I notice that a lot of these answers aren't really tracing the steps. So speaking only for myself: some of those career steps weren't planned - they often came when someone needed someone to do something and thought "Hell, she'll do in a pinch" and I accepted the job with a shrug and "hell, I'll give it a try":
* The foray into HR came because I was temping somewhere, and they were about to eliminate the role and the HR office decided to hire me into its own ranks to keep me around just in case a more straightforward clerical role opened up.
* The PA job came because I was assistant to an entrepreneur who HIMSELF had a wacky offer fall into his lap, when he was asked to manage a TV company. He said yes and brought me along. (And HE only got that job because the guy who actually owned the company was a manufacturer who started it as a tax thing, but then it became like a THING and he gave it to my theater-background boss saying "well, hell, at least theater is more like TV than manufacturing is, here, you do this").
* The stage manager stuff happened back in college because someone was doing a student project and they desperately needed someone to do the basic stage manager stuff and I got drafted and discovered I liked it.
That last point is probably the most illustrative for how a career "path" can go - sometimes it's not what you intend, sometimes you're just open to giving something a try and discovering you have a knack for it and realize "hey wait, I'm good at this, more of this please" and it takes you in a direction you hadn't anticipated. And those kinds of things to try can capitalize on ANY part of your life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:46 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
The "path to where I am" actually started in college when I realized that "hang on, shit, I'm studying acting but I'm way better at being a stage manager", and then I did a lot of temp work while trying to support the theater gigs. Secretarial work uses the same brain energy as a stage manager does so it was a good fit.
I kept on that track for the next 30 years, with 10 years of simultaneous theater work, and occasional flirtations with production assistant for a TV company, sales assistant for a mortgage broker, and HR assistant for an NGO, and just this second I was formally promoted to the role of "Office Manager" where I am (the actual role is more like a hybrid of that and facilities manager, but as my boss said "really it's like you're the stage manager" and he's right).
I can also offer my boss, HIS boss, and the head of HR here -
* Two people who studied theater; one went into theatrical production and one was (and still is) a director, and now are the CEO and the head of HR respectively for a tech/manufacturing company.
* My boss studied photography, and is now Chief Operating Officer.
I notice that a lot of these answers aren't really tracing the steps. So speaking only for myself: some of those career steps weren't planned - they often came when someone needed someone to do something and thought "Hell, she'll do in a pinch" and I accepted the job with a shrug and "hell, I'll give it a try":
* The foray into HR came because I was temping somewhere, and they were about to eliminate the role and the HR office decided to hire me into its own ranks to keep me around just in case a more straightforward clerical role opened up.
* The PA job came because I was assistant to an entrepreneur who HIMSELF had a wacky offer fall into his lap, when he was asked to manage a TV company. He said yes and brought me along. (And HE only got that job because the guy who actually owned the company was a manufacturer who started it as a tax thing, but then it became like a THING and he gave it to my theater-background boss saying "well, hell, at least theater is more like TV than manufacturing is, here, you do this").
* The stage manager stuff happened back in college because someone was doing a student project and they desperately needed someone to do the basic stage manager stuff and I got drafted and discovered I liked it.
That last point is probably the most illustrative for how a career "path" can go - sometimes it's not what you intend, sometimes you're just open to giving something a try and discovering you have a knack for it and realize "hey wait, I'm good at this, more of this please" and it takes you in a direction you hadn't anticipated. And those kinds of things to try can capitalize on ANY part of your life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:46 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
One more thing and then I'll stop dumping on the thread. I totally missed this: "*I've taught college for over ten years, and I'm over that scene. Editorial work, journalism, and marketing are already on my radar."
That is burying the lede, my friend. Have you ever advised? Have you ever worked with your school's tutoring or writing or speaking center? Do you have any skills that could transfer over to a digital media commons? Do you have any connections with your school's communications division? Do you have any friends in admissions? Are you willing to go get an MLIS?
There are so many places in academia that want you and your English degree, so unless you're totally over academia (a feel I totally get), you should definitely be looking at non-teaching academic jobs, both direct student services but also research support, university/college communications, etc.
I don't want to dominate the thread, but if you'd like to chit chat about possibilities from someone who, like I said, advises in this space and knows folk who've gone back and forth between the staff and faculty sides of the house, feel free to MeMail.
posted by joycehealy at 12:50 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
That is burying the lede, my friend. Have you ever advised? Have you ever worked with your school's tutoring or writing or speaking center? Do you have any skills that could transfer over to a digital media commons? Do you have any connections with your school's communications division? Do you have any friends in admissions? Are you willing to go get an MLIS?
There are so many places in academia that want you and your English degree, so unless you're totally over academia (a feel I totally get), you should definitely be looking at non-teaching academic jobs, both direct student services but also research support, university/college communications, etc.
I don't want to dominate the thread, but if you'd like to chit chat about possibilities from someone who, like I said, advises in this space and knows folk who've gone back and forth between the staff and faculty sides of the house, feel free to MeMail.
posted by joycehealy at 12:50 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
English & Women's Studies double major here. I worked in a non-profit for about a year and then outdoor recreation. I did an MA in English in the middle of all this. Then I went back to school to become a librarian.
There are lots of librarians with English BAs, not surprisingly. I actually do use content and skills from my undergrad and grad English degrees in my work. I also use the customer service skills I gained in outdoor recreation.
It's been a pretty good fit for me. That isn't to say I'd recommend librarianship as a career path to everyone. It requires an MLS and, if you want to find a full-time job as a librarian right out of school, geographic flexibility. (My friends and I used to say that there are three aspects of librarian jobs--the type of library; the location; and the type of job within that library--and if you can find two that work for you right out of school, you're doing good.)
It's also the case working in a library, but not in a librarian position, is not at all the same as working as a librarian. The pay isn't great for librarians in many cases, but I'd never suggest someone pursue a career in libraries without an MLS unless maybe you have a PhD. But the staff route in libraries seems pretty terrible in terms of pay and opportunities.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:53 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are lots of librarians with English BAs, not surprisingly. I actually do use content and skills from my undergrad and grad English degrees in my work. I also use the customer service skills I gained in outdoor recreation.
It's been a pretty good fit for me. That isn't to say I'd recommend librarianship as a career path to everyone. It requires an MLS and, if you want to find a full-time job as a librarian right out of school, geographic flexibility. (My friends and I used to say that there are three aspects of librarian jobs--the type of library; the location; and the type of job within that library--and if you can find two that work for you right out of school, you're doing good.)
It's also the case working in a library, but not in a librarian position, is not at all the same as working as a librarian. The pay isn't great for librarians in many cases, but I'd never suggest someone pursue a career in libraries without an MLS unless maybe you have a PhD. But the staff route in libraries seems pretty terrible in terms of pay and opportunities.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:53 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can literally do anything you want to do that doesn't require specific technical and/or scientific skills (and even those you can do with a little more training).
I want to reiterate this comment from earlier. I work with a lot of young people trying to transition from school to work, or older workers looking to switch jobs or careers, and the single most important thing I work on with them is to stop focusing on the degree they have (or the titles they've held), and instead focus on the specific skills and abilities they have. Most people with an undergraduate degree (let alone an MA/MS or PhD) have all the skills necessary to hold and thrive in almost any white-collar job.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:01 PM on February 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I want to reiterate this comment from earlier. I work with a lot of young people trying to transition from school to work, or older workers looking to switch jobs or careers, and the single most important thing I work on with them is to stop focusing on the degree they have (or the titles they've held), and instead focus on the specific skills and abilities they have. Most people with an undergraduate degree (let alone an MA/MS or PhD) have all the skills necessary to hold and thrive in almost any white-collar job.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:01 PM on February 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
BA in English, class of 1994.
I went right into IT, working at an electronic prepress shop in Boston, where I'd had a part-time job as an undergrad. I got laid off there in 1999, switched to more-serious IT (unix sysadmin), and have been there ever since.
But I also did side jobs of proof-reading technical stuff (a book, some SANS courses, etc.), and that's a very viable track.
The ground truth of an English degree is that it's about communicating ideas, and that's still super important all over! For example, I have heard lately about computer security consultants who have NINJA SKILLZ but cannot write to save their lives. They are successful at attacking a client's network, but can't articulate what happened or how to remediate it or even why it matters. They're desperate to find people who can write, who also have some technical background.
So if you have an interest or skill, and an English degree, you can probably rub those two sticks together to make fire. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:12 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I went right into IT, working at an electronic prepress shop in Boston, where I'd had a part-time job as an undergrad. I got laid off there in 1999, switched to more-serious IT (unix sysadmin), and have been there ever since.
But I also did side jobs of proof-reading technical stuff (a book, some SANS courses, etc.), and that's a very viable track.
The ground truth of an English degree is that it's about communicating ideas, and that's still super important all over! For example, I have heard lately about computer security consultants who have NINJA SKILLZ but cannot write to save their lives. They are successful at attacking a client's network, but can't articulate what happened or how to remediate it or even why it matters. They're desperate to find people who can write, who also have some technical background.
So if you have an interest or skill, and an English degree, you can probably rub those two sticks together to make fire. :7)
posted by wenestvedt at 1:12 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Majoring in English was indicative of my status as a bookworm who didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up. Theater minor for my bachelors, and I came extremely close to a master's in English but didn't finish.
So, I got my first job by walking into a local newspaper office and asking if they needed help, the same day I was going around applying at, like, a factory and various places. The editor assigned me a couple of freelance pieces and hired me for general assignment, weekend cops, etc. (I was editor of my college paper, but it wasn't a newspaper in the real sense and I hadn't studied journalism in particular.)
Anyway I lasted about a year before I got laid off, which was kind of a relief because I was too shy and ill-informed to be a good reporter. I then worked in a repair company's call center scheduling service calls on peoples' appliances and stuff for about a year until I got a job at a continuing legal education nonprofit, editing handbooks for attorneys. The work was OK but the pay was extremely low, so it was a very stressful time in my life, but I worked there for nearly a decade before getting back into journalism as follows --
I started at a daily as the assistant librarian (archives, photos, research, etc), then became the head librarian when my boss left. When the discontinued the library I became kind of a newsroom floater working on obits, answering the phone, still doing research, various nonsense until I finally came to copy desk six or eight years ago. As the mergers and buyouts continued, they discontinued copy editing, so for this past year I've been working for that paper's parent company in a wider role planning content for several papers in the state, daily and weekly.
posted by Occula at 1:22 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
So, I got my first job by walking into a local newspaper office and asking if they needed help, the same day I was going around applying at, like, a factory and various places. The editor assigned me a couple of freelance pieces and hired me for general assignment, weekend cops, etc. (I was editor of my college paper, but it wasn't a newspaper in the real sense and I hadn't studied journalism in particular.)
Anyway I lasted about a year before I got laid off, which was kind of a relief because I was too shy and ill-informed to be a good reporter. I then worked in a repair company's call center scheduling service calls on peoples' appliances and stuff for about a year until I got a job at a continuing legal education nonprofit, editing handbooks for attorneys. The work was OK but the pay was extremely low, so it was a very stressful time in my life, but I worked there for nearly a decade before getting back into journalism as follows --
I started at a daily as the assistant librarian (archives, photos, research, etc), then became the head librarian when my boss left. When the discontinued the library I became kind of a newsroom floater working on obits, answering the phone, still doing research, various nonsense until I finally came to copy desk six or eight years ago. As the mergers and buyouts continued, they discontinued copy editing, so for this past year I've been working for that paper's parent company in a wider role planning content for several papers in the state, daily and weekly.
posted by Occula at 1:22 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Couple of post BA campus jobs, law school, lawyer for a bit, and then finance for the past 18 years and change, with notable success. Knew I could ace LSAT and had high math skills and good business temperament when I decided on English BA - options are very different for English majors who lack some or all of those. It was a riskless piece of fun.
posted by MattD at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by MattD at 1:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
It took me a while to really appreciate my degree in English. I majored in English because it was relatively easy for me. I was very interested in Religion, Philosophy, and a few other things, but English was the comfort zone. This was in the early 90s.
After graduating, I applied for many jobs, including a few in publication. I kind of regret not going for that path more, even knowing how the field is so much different now. But I wasn’t mentally ready. I considered law school, but it was not appealing at all.
I ended up teaching special needs kids for a few years. I really liked it and was pretty good at it. The co-workers were mostly awesome, I learned a lot. But I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do long term. (If I had, I could have gotten a paid-for master's degree in special ed, and could have made decent money.)
As much as I loved reading and analyzing literature, I didn’t feel a pull towards getting another degree in that, and to be honest I didn’t have great grades.
I have moderate artistic talent and was always interested in architecture. So, around age 25, I applied to various schools and ended up in a somewhat mediocre program in a beautiful state.
Graduate school was very hard and at times extremely mean spirited. But I survived, made many awesome friends, and learned about a subject that was so interesting to me. I ended up in an adjacent field with a very good salary.
My English degree was foundational to my success. As a teacher once said, clear writing is clear thinking. When I was hiring staff, a liberal arts degree was a plus.
posted by rhonzo at 1:33 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
After graduating, I applied for many jobs, including a few in publication. I kind of regret not going for that path more, even knowing how the field is so much different now. But I wasn’t mentally ready. I considered law school, but it was not appealing at all.
I ended up teaching special needs kids for a few years. I really liked it and was pretty good at it. The co-workers were mostly awesome, I learned a lot. But I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do long term. (If I had, I could have gotten a paid-for master's degree in special ed, and could have made decent money.)
As much as I loved reading and analyzing literature, I didn’t feel a pull towards getting another degree in that, and to be honest I didn’t have great grades.
I have moderate artistic talent and was always interested in architecture. So, around age 25, I applied to various schools and ended up in a somewhat mediocre program in a beautiful state.
Graduate school was very hard and at times extremely mean spirited. But I survived, made many awesome friends, and learned about a subject that was so interesting to me. I ended up in an adjacent field with a very good salary.
My English degree was foundational to my success. As a teacher once said, clear writing is clear thinking. When I was hiring staff, a liberal arts degree was a plus.
posted by rhonzo at 1:33 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I double-majored in Comparative Literature and Chemistry, and I went to med school. My joking-not-joking comment is that I use my complit knowledge waaaay more than whatever it was I learned in chem.
Humanities majors have the highest matriculation rate into medical school (44%, compared to 40% of math/stats majors and 36% of biological science majors). I also think we make better doctors because we know how stories work.
There are a bunch of pre-requisites, though, so it's not a field you just sort of fall into, especially if you're already feeling burned out from your current job.
posted by basalganglia at 1:36 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Humanities majors have the highest matriculation rate into medical school (44%, compared to 40% of math/stats majors and 36% of biological science majors). I also think we make better doctors because we know how stories work.
There are a bunch of pre-requisites, though, so it's not a field you just sort of fall into, especially if you're already feeling burned out from your current job.
posted by basalganglia at 1:36 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Another lawyer with an english degree. I love being a lawyer but I do not recommend it to most people.
I also have done a LOT of hiring over the years, and lots and lots of the people I have hired have had degrees in English or other liberal arts areas. These include: social media managers, paralegals, HR representatives, various types of writers, lots of "jack of all trades" kind of positions, office managers, sales people, various marketing positions, people on project management teams (if I were to recommend studying something additional right now, it would probably be real project management).
posted by dpx.mfx at 1:46 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I also have done a LOT of hiring over the years, and lots and lots of the people I have hired have had degrees in English or other liberal arts areas. These include: social media managers, paralegals, HR representatives, various types of writers, lots of "jack of all trades" kind of positions, office managers, sales people, various marketing positions, people on project management teams (if I were to recommend studying something additional right now, it would probably be real project management).
posted by dpx.mfx at 1:46 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Should also add, one of my classmates in my English degree ended up going on to vet school, and was my dogs' vet as a professor in a vet school. One of her colleagues, upon learning we'd been classmates, specifically mentioned how the other vets were in awe of her ability to communicate with clients.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 1:52 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by pixiecrinkle at 1:52 PM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have a BA in History. I thought I was going to law school so I worked as a paralegal for a while. When I wasn't convinced I wanted to be a lawyer - I worked in publishing for a very short time. It turned out that I did not want to work in publishing.
I eventually got an MLIS in the evenings while working at various law firms, and now I'm a remote research analyst (aka librarian) specializing in the kind of law I like and know best. It's intellectually interesting to me and I would say that my analytical skills are used in problem solving exercises most days. I also get to turn the computer off at a decent hour.
One field that doesn't exactly rely on the kind of transactional or legal knowledge I have learned over the years and is constantly looking for new hires is law firm business intelligence. If you can write a decent report and analyze a company or person - that skill is in demand and it's hard to hire for (if going by our own department is any indication).
posted by rdnnyc at 2:07 PM on February 25, 2022
I eventually got an MLIS in the evenings while working at various law firms, and now I'm a remote research analyst (aka librarian) specializing in the kind of law I like and know best. It's intellectually interesting to me and I would say that my analytical skills are used in problem solving exercises most days. I also get to turn the computer off at a decent hour.
One field that doesn't exactly rely on the kind of transactional or legal knowledge I have learned over the years and is constantly looking for new hires is law firm business intelligence. If you can write a decent report and analyze a company or person - that skill is in demand and it's hard to hire for (if going by our own department is any indication).
posted by rdnnyc at 2:07 PM on February 25, 2022
I have a BA in Lit. I'm a Creative Director for a small ad agency, mostly non-profit and tourism focused. Started as a copywriter, stuck around, etc.
I have also been (sometimes at the same time and while working in advertising) a record store clerk, a music critic, a magazine writer, a ghostwriter, an "editor" of academic papers/admissions essays/etc, a paid storyteller, a playwright and a general freelance whatever.
The current job pays reasonably well, comes with insurance and I don't hate my clients, or myself, for writing about them.
It's not for everyone. Works for me.
posted by thivaia at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
I have also been (sometimes at the same time and while working in advertising) a record store clerk, a music critic, a magazine writer, a ghostwriter, an "editor" of academic papers/admissions essays/etc, a paid storyteller, a playwright and a general freelance whatever.
The current job pays reasonably well, comes with insurance and I don't hate my clients, or myself, for writing about them.
It's not for everyone. Works for me.
posted by thivaia at 2:15 PM on February 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Right out of college I was an administrative assistant, then a library staff member, then a medical librarian, and now I'm a web developer.
posted by zoetrope at 2:38 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by zoetrope at 2:38 PM on February 25, 2022
I was an English major and now I'm an English professor, which is a well-known thing that you already know you can do with an English degree, or at least people used to be able to. My insurance agent was also an English major. So was the person who cut my hair a few haircuts ago (the haircut was fine, I just moved). Jobs that friends of mine and alums of the school I teach at do include:
1) Work in IT at a university
2) Write and edit scientific grants
3) Contractor/carpenter
4) Vet
5) High school teacher
6) Medical publishing
7) Reproductive rights/health non-profit
8) Lawyer/Paralegal
9) College admissions officer
10) Nonprofit development/fundraising
11) Pastor
12) Social work
13) Organic farmer
14) Software content writing
I've really appreciated this thread. One thing that I regret is that I can't give better career advice to my students, because the nature of academia is that if you don't focus on it obsessively as a career you're not likely to end up in the chair giving advice--it's virtually the only thing I've ever known. And yet in spite of me and my colleagues our students flourish.
posted by sy at 2:58 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
1) Work in IT at a university
2) Write and edit scientific grants
3) Contractor/carpenter
4) Vet
5) High school teacher
6) Medical publishing
7) Reproductive rights/health non-profit
8) Lawyer/Paralegal
9) College admissions officer
10) Nonprofit development/fundraising
11) Pastor
12) Social work
13) Organic farmer
14) Software content writing
I've really appreciated this thread. One thing that I regret is that I can't give better career advice to my students, because the nature of academia is that if you don't focus on it obsessively as a career you're not likely to end up in the chair giving advice--it's virtually the only thing I've ever known. And yet in spite of me and my colleagues our students flourish.
posted by sy at 2:58 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I graduated with a BA in Theater (lighting design mostly) in the late 80s, just when "Greed Is Good" was starting to devolve into "It's the Economy, Stupid." Jobs since then, in order, are: Stage electrician/designer/stage manager, messenger, bookstore clerk, bookstore buyer, bookstore web designer, front-end developer, full-stack developer + accessibility analyst. Everything up to bookstore web designer was all learn-on-the-job, no formal training. Since then I've done a bunch professional development, but nothing particularly systematic.
One commonality I have noticed between lighting design and web development is that if there's an auteur involved, it's definitely not me. I am supporting the vision of the project - making it visible, even - but it's not primarily my vision. (This is not a bad thing, far from it.) Another commonality in all of them, at least how I tried to do the jobs, is a customer-service orientation, trying to help people who might not know or know how to express what they want. Sometimes there's a formal discovery process, sometimes you're just trying to remember that book with the red cover.
posted by expialidocious at 3:01 PM on February 25, 2022
One commonality I have noticed between lighting design and web development is that if there's an auteur involved, it's definitely not me. I am supporting the vision of the project - making it visible, even - but it's not primarily my vision. (This is not a bad thing, far from it.) Another commonality in all of them, at least how I tried to do the jobs, is a customer-service orientation, trying to help people who might not know or know how to express what they want. Sometimes there's a formal discovery process, sometimes you're just trying to remember that book with the red cover.
posted by expialidocious at 3:01 PM on February 25, 2022
I'm a UX designer with a BA in English Lit. I was an admin assistant at the state DOJ for a year after college (mid 2000s) and fell into litigation support case management from there. That job involved training legal staff on software, which led to my interest in usability (and complete lack of interest in going to law school), and I left that job to get an MFA in Interaction Design. I've worked at software companies since then, and all the writing I did in undergrad still serves me well when writing documentation, putting together presentations, and making hopefully persuasive arguments for why I'm right, lol. Copy editors have told me I'd make a good UX writer.
posted by kiripin at 3:10 PM on February 25, 2022
posted by kiripin at 3:10 PM on February 25, 2022
BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing -- right out of college I was an administrative assistant, happened to stumble into web development when that was a thing you could just *do*, and I've been doing several variations of that for 20 years. Currently I'm a web developer for a college, focusing on managing the content management system.
I will say that the specialty that I'm about to switch to (new job next month!) is particularly well suited to experience with writing and organizing information: content strategy. Which is adjacent to UX, which several other people have mentioned.
I use my writing skills ALL THE TIME, and one of the things that's exciting for me in this next job is being able to do that even more.
posted by epersonae at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2022
I will say that the specialty that I'm about to switch to (new job next month!) is particularly well suited to experience with writing and organizing information: content strategy. Which is adjacent to UX, which several other people have mentioned.
I use my writing skills ALL THE TIME, and one of the things that's exciting for me in this next job is being able to do that even more.
posted by epersonae at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2022
>what was your first job upon finishing college? How did you get it? What kinds of jobs did you take from there and what are you doing now? Do the skills from your undergrad experience continue to serve you, or has the on-the-job experience superseded them?
My first job was doing attendant care in a care home. I had volunteered there while I was in last year of a bachelor degree in psychology and English. The work was not related to English or literature, but I found it really rewarding (it was a phenomenal learning experience, it was meaningful work with immediate and real world results and impacts, the work experience was portable, you have the options to work days, evenings or overnights, it paid above minimum wage, and so on).
I guess the only time the English degree helped me there was when I started helping out my supervisor with admin tasks - which then surprisingly enough helped when I applied to archives school. I now work in archives; I don't really recommend pursuing archival studies (because of funding, contract work, etc.), but I very much enjoy archival work.
The other people I knew from undergrad English went into medical writing, publishing (with a pivot into database management), inherited the family business, internal trainer for a megacorp.
Don't regret studying English. The ability to read large texts and extract the themes, write clearly, and so on are very important.
posted by philfromhavelock at 4:02 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
My first job was doing attendant care in a care home. I had volunteered there while I was in last year of a bachelor degree in psychology and English. The work was not related to English or literature, but I found it really rewarding (it was a phenomenal learning experience, it was meaningful work with immediate and real world results and impacts, the work experience was portable, you have the options to work days, evenings or overnights, it paid above minimum wage, and so on).
I guess the only time the English degree helped me there was when I started helping out my supervisor with admin tasks - which then surprisingly enough helped when I applied to archives school. I now work in archives; I don't really recommend pursuing archival studies (because of funding, contract work, etc.), but I very much enjoy archival work.
The other people I knew from undergrad English went into medical writing, publishing (with a pivot into database management), inherited the family business, internal trainer for a megacorp.
Don't regret studying English. The ability to read large texts and extract the themes, write clearly, and so on are very important.
posted by philfromhavelock at 4:02 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
English BA here!
Right out of college I was a supervisor at a bookstore chain. Do not recommend.
My next job led me into my current career - but you could skip all my missteps (specialized call center employee, customer support for several years...) and go straight to looking at onboarding/enablement specialist or implementation manager jobs for a SaaS company if you like working with people, setting things up, solving problems, and teasing out what customers actually want. There's a lot of writing/communication and you do not NEED technical skills, though they certainly help. Plus it pays the bills.
I could also have easily gone into a career in Customer Success. I like more of a hands-on role with customers and their product, but if relationship building and customer advocacy appeal, look into this!
I credit my degree with teaching me how to do close reading and analyze the hell out of everything, which in turn made me very effective at intuiting customers' actual needs rather than whatever corporate mandate had then purchasing the product I was assisting with. You'll also have a huge advantage when it comes to professional communication with others as you should be familiar with writing and presenting ideas clearly. This is a vastly underrated skill that makes you sound very polished and professional, especially when so much work is done via email or Slack.
Would I do it differently if I could go back and do it again? Eh, maybe. I'd actually focus more on mental health and perhaps dual majoring in computer science, but I think my English degree really was actually quite good and offered me flexibility rather than a clear-cut career path that I know I wouldn't have been able to choose accurately as a young adult.
posted by daikaisho at 4:42 PM on February 25, 2022
Right out of college I was a supervisor at a bookstore chain. Do not recommend.
My next job led me into my current career - but you could skip all my missteps (specialized call center employee, customer support for several years...) and go straight to looking at onboarding/enablement specialist or implementation manager jobs for a SaaS company if you like working with people, setting things up, solving problems, and teasing out what customers actually want. There's a lot of writing/communication and you do not NEED technical skills, though they certainly help. Plus it pays the bills.
I could also have easily gone into a career in Customer Success. I like more of a hands-on role with customers and their product, but if relationship building and customer advocacy appeal, look into this!
I credit my degree with teaching me how to do close reading and analyze the hell out of everything, which in turn made me very effective at intuiting customers' actual needs rather than whatever corporate mandate had then purchasing the product I was assisting with. You'll also have a huge advantage when it comes to professional communication with others as you should be familiar with writing and presenting ideas clearly. This is a vastly underrated skill that makes you sound very polished and professional, especially when so much work is done via email or Slack.
Would I do it differently if I could go back and do it again? Eh, maybe. I'd actually focus more on mental health and perhaps dual majoring in computer science, but I think my English degree really was actually quite good and offered me flexibility rather than a clear-cut career path that I know I wouldn't have been able to choose accurately as a young adult.
posted by daikaisho at 4:42 PM on February 25, 2022
I have a degree in linguistics. From there I got a temp admin job at a university, ended up spending several years in various student services / program coordination/ data analysis type roles. Mostly administrative with some data/tech projects when I could get my hands on them (which was not often, because some people get lucky, but in a lot of workplaces the admins are silo-ed off from getting to play with tech.)
Anyway, I am officially a member of the Great Resignation. I took a software bootcamp and now I'm a software engineer. If you are a woman, gender diverse, and/ or a person of color, there are many recruitment opportunities to get into tech.
It's not easy and believe me, I heard and eyerolled for a long time at a lot of "lol just learn to code" type advice. But if you enjoy solving problems or playing with systems, you could take an intro class and see if you like it!
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:49 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anyway, I am officially a member of the Great Resignation. I took a software bootcamp and now I'm a software engineer. If you are a woman, gender diverse, and/ or a person of color, there are many recruitment opportunities to get into tech.
It's not easy and believe me, I heard and eyerolled for a long time at a lot of "lol just learn to code" type advice. But if you enjoy solving problems or playing with systems, you could take an intro class and see if you like it!
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:49 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I started college (Umass Amherst) in the fall of 1990. I was one very messed up young man. By spring 1993, I was thrown out for bad grades. That summer I got my first waiter job, at a fancy yacht club on the Vineyard.
I tried to go back to school a couple times but always sort of just stopped going to class. I kept working in the restaurant industry, around central MA with summers on island, then in 1997 moved to NYC.
I took a course here and there at Hunter college but did not make much progress finishing the degree. Sometimes I'd drop out or just stop going. Had my first few restaurant manager jobs and all kinds of crazy adventures, helped with some high profile openings, waited on Art Speigleman...and then one day in late 2001 I realized I'd never finish my degree if I kept working in the restaurants, the lifestyle was to seductive and intense. So I quit my manager job, found a little dogwalking job in lower Manhattan that paid almost nothing but let me work in the day and go to school at night. I enrolled at BMCC and got great grades, brought my GPA up, transferred to Hunter through a program designed for non-traditional (read: fuck-ups who failed out of school) students that required you to design your own major. I called mine Literary Analysis and Craft, sort of a 50/50 split between writing workshops and upper level lit courses, finished off with some independent studies, and amazingly finished it in 2004.
And went right back to managing a restaurant. Then to waiting tables. Then my boss at the dogwalking job called me up and said she wanted me back, and while the pay would still suck she could give me health insurance. So I did that from 2004-2013.
By then, I'd met my "for life" partner and she and I left the city and moved here to the Vineyard. I knew I'd be heading back to the restaurant industry if I wanted year round work, and after several twists and turns and waiter and bartender and barista and manager jobs, I'm the service director here since 2019 and I love it.
I wanted to write, I never did that. But I use the critical thinking, story telling, and organizational skills every day. Dig into my posting history during the pandemic for some examples of what I've learned about what a restaurant can come to mean to a community and vice versa.
Those years I was not in school, and the years after when I did not pursue a writing job or just work on my own work, I served a massive apprenticeship, so I have the knowledge and skill base to do what I do, but I do it better, and differently, than most people with a job like mine because of my academic experience. Also, my dad was in the business and so was his dad, so I was always around it, but did not love it or want to make it my vocation. That came later.
So, kind of an outlier as I did not do the usual 4 years and go find a job route, more of a take 14 years, building a career along the way, then graduate. But I bet, and I sure hope, there are other people in my industry who took a similar path. I love what I do, I engage with thousands of people a year, I lead a team, I problem solve in real time, and my boss trusts and appreciates me. So I feel like I use my degree all the time.
Sorry to drone on, but I saw this when I was just leaving for work (nights and weekends are the price one pays) so had plenty of time to think on it.
posted by vrakatar at 7:58 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I tried to go back to school a couple times but always sort of just stopped going to class. I kept working in the restaurant industry, around central MA with summers on island, then in 1997 moved to NYC.
I took a course here and there at Hunter college but did not make much progress finishing the degree. Sometimes I'd drop out or just stop going. Had my first few restaurant manager jobs and all kinds of crazy adventures, helped with some high profile openings, waited on Art Speigleman...and then one day in late 2001 I realized I'd never finish my degree if I kept working in the restaurants, the lifestyle was to seductive and intense. So I quit my manager job, found a little dogwalking job in lower Manhattan that paid almost nothing but let me work in the day and go to school at night. I enrolled at BMCC and got great grades, brought my GPA up, transferred to Hunter through a program designed for non-traditional (read: fuck-ups who failed out of school) students that required you to design your own major. I called mine Literary Analysis and Craft, sort of a 50/50 split between writing workshops and upper level lit courses, finished off with some independent studies, and amazingly finished it in 2004.
And went right back to managing a restaurant. Then to waiting tables. Then my boss at the dogwalking job called me up and said she wanted me back, and while the pay would still suck she could give me health insurance. So I did that from 2004-2013.
By then, I'd met my "for life" partner and she and I left the city and moved here to the Vineyard. I knew I'd be heading back to the restaurant industry if I wanted year round work, and after several twists and turns and waiter and bartender and barista and manager jobs, I'm the service director here since 2019 and I love it.
I wanted to write, I never did that. But I use the critical thinking, story telling, and organizational skills every day. Dig into my posting history during the pandemic for some examples of what I've learned about what a restaurant can come to mean to a community and vice versa.
Those years I was not in school, and the years after when I did not pursue a writing job or just work on my own work, I served a massive apprenticeship, so I have the knowledge and skill base to do what I do, but I do it better, and differently, than most people with a job like mine because of my academic experience. Also, my dad was in the business and so was his dad, so I was always around it, but did not love it or want to make it my vocation. That came later.
So, kind of an outlier as I did not do the usual 4 years and go find a job route, more of a take 14 years, building a career along the way, then graduate. But I bet, and I sure hope, there are other people in my industry who took a similar path. I love what I do, I engage with thousands of people a year, I lead a team, I problem solve in real time, and my boss trusts and appreciates me. So I feel like I use my degree all the time.
Sorry to drone on, but I saw this when I was just leaving for work (nights and weekends are the price one pays) so had plenty of time to think on it.
posted by vrakatar at 7:58 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have a BA in Communications. My last year of college I had three part-time jobs, one of which was in the University Telecom office. When I graduated in 1993 Telecom had been tasked with wiring the whole (gigantic) campus with CAT-5. So, my first job out of college was pulling cable, wiring patch panels, carrying tools and working with electricians. I really loved it. One day, the team went to a nearby town for a trade show and they decided to have lunch at a strip club. They left me in the car for an hour while they had lunch - I'd been invited to join them but was a young 23, ardently feminist and trying to do the right thing.
After I told my boss's boss about it I wasn't welcome out in the field any more, now I was "holding down the fort" by staying in the office. No more pulling cable, no more team spirit, no more of any of it. My only consolation was that I was excited there was a brand new PowerMac 6100 sitting on my desk and I dove into learning HTML, CSS, and PageMaker.
And that is how I became a web developer.
What I learned in my Communications program has been a major influence in my perspective on how I view the media and advertising and I still use that knowledge every day. IMO the real purpose of a college education, especially a BA, is the new perspectives, the new experiences, the new everything you discover there.
posted by bendy at 8:08 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
After I told my boss's boss about it I wasn't welcome out in the field any more, now I was "holding down the fort" by staying in the office. No more pulling cable, no more team spirit, no more of any of it. My only consolation was that I was excited there was a brand new PowerMac 6100 sitting on my desk and I dove into learning HTML, CSS, and PageMaker.
And that is how I became a web developer.
What I learned in my Communications program has been a major influence in my perspective on how I view the media and advertising and I still use that knowledge every day. IMO the real purpose of a college education, especially a BA, is the new perspectives, the new experiences, the new everything you discover there.
posted by bendy at 8:08 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
The common feature throughout - at least since the early 2000s - has been the ability to write well and convey coherent narratives / tell stories about the projects or products I've worked with. That's where the background in Lit has helped, a lot.
My personal trajectory has probably been a bit too weird to hold up as a model, but the comments all through this thread about the value of knowing how to write and communicate match my experience exactly. I have a liberal arts degree and now work in a STEM or STEM-ish field. I work with (and in some cases supervise) people with much more technical educations, but I can write well and at the end of the day that is what is needed to convey information, and hence valued.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on February 25, 2022
My personal trajectory has probably been a bit too weird to hold up as a model, but the comments all through this thread about the value of knowing how to write and communicate match my experience exactly. I have a liberal arts degree and now work in a STEM or STEM-ish field. I work with (and in some cases supervise) people with much more technical educations, but I can write well and at the end of the day that is what is needed to convey information, and hence valued.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on February 25, 2022
English BA. Many people assumed I would teach school, I said fuck no. They had no suggestions beyond that. I am good at editing and writing. Here are some jobs I had:
Bookstore clerk
Accounting firm copyeditor.
Tons of random office temp jobs when needed because I was a decent typist and showed up sober and on time
Admin assistant for an educational publisher
Sprint customer service
Accounting admin in healthcare
(Took graphics classes)
Marketing assistant for life insurance company
Marketing for large public university*
Marketing for small private university*
Freelance editor, textbooks
(Moved to NYC)
Temp for NY State Office Mental Health--admin
Production editor, small educational publisher
(Realized it was impossible to live on publishing salary in NYC, moved back to TX)
Ad agency intake desk
Proposal writer, large health insurance firm**
Proposal writer, growing engineering firm
Proposal Manager, same firm
* These two university jobs were astonishingly terrible; toxic, underpaid, stressful
**First job I ever really got decent salary and bennies
posted by emjaybee at 8:54 PM on February 25, 2022
Bookstore clerk
Accounting firm copyeditor.
Tons of random office temp jobs when needed because I was a decent typist and showed up sober and on time
Admin assistant for an educational publisher
Sprint customer service
Accounting admin in healthcare
(Took graphics classes)
Marketing assistant for life insurance company
Marketing for large public university*
Marketing for small private university*
Freelance editor, textbooks
(Moved to NYC)
Temp for NY State Office Mental Health--admin
Production editor, small educational publisher
(Realized it was impossible to live on publishing salary in NYC, moved back to TX)
Ad agency intake desk
Proposal writer, large health insurance firm**
Proposal writer, growing engineering firm
Proposal Manager, same firm
* These two university jobs were astonishingly terrible; toxic, underpaid, stressful
**First job I ever really got decent salary and bennies
posted by emjaybee at 8:54 PM on February 25, 2022
I have a BA in history. I cooked my way through college, and am now a chef. My ability to communicate & write clearly and professionally are very valuable (and rare), and my willingness to sit behind a computer and slog through data and information is a skill I’m glad I have.
posted by Grandysaur at 9:06 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Grandysaur at 9:06 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not an English major, but a Journalism graduate (with minors in English and poli sci). I only worked in journalism for two years, worked clerical in a bank for eight, then got an AA in computer programming. I worked in IT until 2012, none of which had much to do with what I learned in with my second degree.
In 2012, at age 56, I got a job with my current company because they were looking for people who were trainable for work as electronic data exchange (EDI) analysts. Though I have technical experience, I wasn't hired for a technical job. I met my company's cultural values of curiosity, humor, and other things, a lot of which I attribute to my humanities-oriented education and my work experience, which saw me dealing with people as much as with machines and software.
One of my English profs answered the question of "what good is an English degree?" by saying that an English degree helps teach people to think, and often employers want people who can think, are open to new things, and who don't have a particular skill set. My employer expected me to think logically, express myself clearly in speech and in writing, and be open to learning new things. Though I work in a technical department with technical people, I still don't do a technical job. Though not in my job description, I have become the go-to person for creating and editing documentation, vetting complex and critical emails.
posted by lhauser at 10:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
In 2012, at age 56, I got a job with my current company because they were looking for people who were trainable for work as electronic data exchange (EDI) analysts. Though I have technical experience, I wasn't hired for a technical job. I met my company's cultural values of curiosity, humor, and other things, a lot of which I attribute to my humanities-oriented education and my work experience, which saw me dealing with people as much as with machines and software.
One of my English profs answered the question of "what good is an English degree?" by saying that an English degree helps teach people to think, and often employers want people who can think, are open to new things, and who don't have a particular skill set. My employer expected me to think logically, express myself clearly in speech and in writing, and be open to learning new things. Though I work in a technical department with technical people, I still don't do a technical job. Though not in my job description, I have become the go-to person for creating and editing documentation, vetting complex and critical emails.
posted by lhauser at 10:26 PM on February 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
BA in Lit, minor in Psych.
I worked part time through college building, fixing, and selling PCs. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated, and eventually landed a job doing everything for a tiny software consulting startup that the engineers didn't do: HR, benefits, payroll, IT, systems administration, marketing, webmaster (the Internet was brand new then), etc.
When that gig ended, I could have gone a bunch of different directions since I had experience with so many things. Keeping computers running matched my interests and talents, so I went with that. I put all the computer stuff on my resume and omitted the rest. This ended up turning into the foundation of my engineering career. I've worked at a couple of companies you definitely know (and almost certainly use). I feel like a bit of an imposter since I don't have an engineering degree but c'est la vie.
Do I use skills from my degree? Yes, albeit not directly. Reading, critical thinking, and arguing a point of view with evidence are things I do every day. Working hard and meeting project deadlines are extensions of college work in general. Writing clearly and succinctly is invaluable; writing email, Slack messages and documents is a large part of my job.
To some extent it doesn't matter what your major was. I work with a bunch of math majors, a marine geology major, and folks who studied a bunch of other disciplines and they all have engineering titles.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 10:50 PM on February 25, 2022
I worked part time through college building, fixing, and selling PCs. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated, and eventually landed a job doing everything for a tiny software consulting startup that the engineers didn't do: HR, benefits, payroll, IT, systems administration, marketing, webmaster (the Internet was brand new then), etc.
When that gig ended, I could have gone a bunch of different directions since I had experience with so many things. Keeping computers running matched my interests and talents, so I went with that. I put all the computer stuff on my resume and omitted the rest. This ended up turning into the foundation of my engineering career. I've worked at a couple of companies you definitely know (and almost certainly use). I feel like a bit of an imposter since I don't have an engineering degree but c'est la vie.
Do I use skills from my degree? Yes, albeit not directly. Reading, critical thinking, and arguing a point of view with evidence are things I do every day. Working hard and meeting project deadlines are extensions of college work in general. Writing clearly and succinctly is invaluable; writing email, Slack messages and documents is a large part of my job.
To some extent it doesn't matter what your major was. I work with a bunch of math majors, a marine geology major, and folks who studied a bunch of other disciplines and they all have engineering titles.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 10:50 PM on February 25, 2022
I'm doing QA work for web designers and developers, as a consultant working for a big bank you've heard of. This is my third consulting gig at that bank, the second stint with my current employer, and I've been in this role since 2015. I took a, shall we say, circuitous route to get here, after graduating in 1998 with a BA in English, concentrating in American Short Fiction: general assignment reporter for a daily newspaper; general assignment reporter for a weekly newspaper; online editor for a TV station; features writer and section editor for two monthly consumer magazines; managing editor for two trade magazines, technical editor (bank consulting gig 1); web content manager (bank consulting gig 2); back to that same TV station as executive producer for digital content; back to consulting, my current job.
My college didn't have a journalism program beyond the two semesters I took my senior year, taught by the editor of a newspaper in a neighboring county who encouraged me to apply for what ended up being my first job. Everyone in those classes was already working on one campus publication or another, and I'm still in touch with a few classmates who ended up in publishing, journalism or technical editing careers.
posted by emelenjr at 6:13 AM on February 26, 2022
My college didn't have a journalism program beyond the two semesters I took my senior year, taught by the editor of a newspaper in a neighboring county who encouraged me to apply for what ended up being my first job. Everyone in those classes was already working on one campus publication or another, and I'm still in touch with a few classmates who ended up in publishing, journalism or technical editing careers.
posted by emelenjr at 6:13 AM on February 26, 2022
BA in English, and after a couple years post-graduation floundering in retail I got a job at Borders (oh how I miss Borders). Then moved to a book distributor who caters to the library market - worked there about 15 years, got my MLIS and am now an adult services librarian at a public library.
Like others have said I feel like you can do so much with an English degree. Nothing I specifically learned in college helps me now but being able to think critically, organize my thoughts, express myself in writing are all a huge part of my (small) success.
When I get antsy about work I look at jobs at places like EBSCO, academic publishers, university presses, and library vendors like Ingram, Brodart, etc. because that’s what I know.
posted by lyssabee at 8:03 AM on February 26, 2022
Like others have said I feel like you can do so much with an English degree. Nothing I specifically learned in college helps me now but being able to think critically, organize my thoughts, express myself in writing are all a huge part of my (small) success.
When I get antsy about work I look at jobs at places like EBSCO, academic publishers, university presses, and library vendors like Ingram, Brodart, etc. because that’s what I know.
posted by lyssabee at 8:03 AM on February 26, 2022
I have a diploma in multimedia design, and a BA in Theatre w/a concentration in design. (Got my diploma years before my degree.) After I graduated university I worked in theatre and opera for a few years, then pivoted to graphic design and illustration.
I'm currently working as an in-house designer at a huge global company. I use skills from both my diploma and my degree every single day, probably in ways I don't even realize. I'm happy with my education because I'm the type of person who gets bored doing the same thing for awhile, and because of my education I have tons of opportunities available to me. I can write well, I adapt to different industries quickly (I've worked in finance, health care, and tech), and my artistic flair makes me stand out. Sometimes I hear people say things like being artsy or a creative is looked down on in business, but I've found it often impresses people and helps me stand out. I also think an education in the arts and humanities is a huge life enhancement in general - I'm so grateful that I'm able to research things properly, think critically, communicate effectively, and appreciate artistic works on a deeper level. I also didn't really understand history until I went to university and learned about art movements + all the context behind them. The popular philosophies of the time/place, the political environment, technological developments, even clothing production and popular music - everything ties together.
posted by Stoof at 9:53 AM on February 26, 2022
I'm currently working as an in-house designer at a huge global company. I use skills from both my diploma and my degree every single day, probably in ways I don't even realize. I'm happy with my education because I'm the type of person who gets bored doing the same thing for awhile, and because of my education I have tons of opportunities available to me. I can write well, I adapt to different industries quickly (I've worked in finance, health care, and tech), and my artistic flair makes me stand out. Sometimes I hear people say things like being artsy or a creative is looked down on in business, but I've found it often impresses people and helps me stand out. I also think an education in the arts and humanities is a huge life enhancement in general - I'm so grateful that I'm able to research things properly, think critically, communicate effectively, and appreciate artistic works on a deeper level. I also didn't really understand history until I went to university and learned about art movements + all the context behind them. The popular philosophies of the time/place, the political environment, technological developments, even clothing production and popular music - everything ties together.
posted by Stoof at 9:53 AM on February 26, 2022
In your time teaching college, were you part of a collective bargaining unit like a faculty association or union? Did you ever serve as a steward or on the executive? If so, you may have skills that can be parlayed into positions at other labour organizations.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:50 PM on February 26, 2022
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:50 PM on February 26, 2022
I know someone who works for an organization that trains service dogs. She has a degree in psychology, but I don't think the org cares about that. She got into it by raising a puppy for them and then entering their apprenticeship program. She started as a dog trainer, but has risen through the ranks into a desk job managing volunteers and stuff.
I also have at least one friend who got a software QA job without a degree at all. QA, by the way, is a good way for people who like systematically testing the limits of a system to see what breaks, and also are good at communicating how they broke it.
posted by elizabot at 1:22 PM on February 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I also have at least one friend who got a software QA job without a degree at all. QA, by the way, is a good way for people who like systematically testing the limits of a system to see what breaks, and also are good at communicating how they broke it.
posted by elizabot at 1:22 PM on February 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have an MA in English.
For the past 8 years, I’ve worked in program development in museums (school programs, public events, etc). This is very rewarding and interesting work, but I would say overall pretty hard to find. It usually doesn’t pay well unless you get on with a federal or really big name museum and there’s a lot of short term contracts. I do not live in a major urban centre - I believe this has helped me advance my career as there are fewer qualified applicants for available jobs. The market for museum jobs in huge cities is very, very over saturated. There are usually similar opportunities/positions with a bit more regularity in national parks.
A few years ago, I joined the volunteer board of a heritage organization and did their communications and social media. Next week, I’m starting a new job creating a digital engagement strategy to bring settlement services to refugees/New Canadians. If you can get your foot in the door with non profit work, there are a lot of options for people with our skillset - especially in grant writing.
Best of luck!
posted by oywiththepoodles at 6:30 AM on February 27, 2022
For the past 8 years, I’ve worked in program development in museums (school programs, public events, etc). This is very rewarding and interesting work, but I would say overall pretty hard to find. It usually doesn’t pay well unless you get on with a federal or really big name museum and there’s a lot of short term contracts. I do not live in a major urban centre - I believe this has helped me advance my career as there are fewer qualified applicants for available jobs. The market for museum jobs in huge cities is very, very over saturated. There are usually similar opportunities/positions with a bit more regularity in national parks.
A few years ago, I joined the volunteer board of a heritage organization and did their communications and social media. Next week, I’m starting a new job creating a digital engagement strategy to bring settlement services to refugees/New Canadians. If you can get your foot in the door with non profit work, there are a lot of options for people with our skillset - especially in grant writing.
Best of luck!
posted by oywiththepoodles at 6:30 AM on February 27, 2022
BA in religious studies. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career so I just needed some job. I applied to lots of things and was eventually hired into a non-technical role by a software company that has a habit of hiring lots of recent grads and people with decidedly not-tech backgrounds to do analyst, project management, training, and documentation work. Been in that industry ever since and pretty happy with it.
I have friends similar to me who ran screaming from the industry, but they did so after earning enough money to save up a bit. And they had some work experience and a few more years of maturing, both of which helped them get into a new industry or grad school. So I don't think they'd say it was a mistake to take a job that didn't turn into a career.
posted by Tehhund at 12:13 PM on February 27, 2022
I have friends similar to me who ran screaming from the industry, but they did so after earning enough money to save up a bit. And they had some work experience and a few more years of maturing, both of which helped them get into a new industry or grad school. So I don't think they'd say it was a mistake to take a job that didn't turn into a career.
posted by Tehhund at 12:13 PM on February 27, 2022
Here are some jobs I have had after getting an English BA.
1. Secretary for court reporter’s office
2. Exceptional education teacher
3. Patient care coordinator for a plastic surgeon
4. Currently a care coordinator for a healthcare concierge company
I graduated 16 years ago and continue to have no idea what I want to do when I grow up
posted by tatiana wishbone at 4:54 PM on February 27, 2022
1. Secretary for court reporter’s office
2. Exceptional education teacher
3. Patient care coordinator for a plastic surgeon
4. Currently a care coordinator for a healthcare concierge company
I graduated 16 years ago and continue to have no idea what I want to do when I grow up
posted by tatiana wishbone at 4:54 PM on February 27, 2022
I left college with an English degree, took a job with a bank answering credit card customer service calls on third shift. Learned I had a skill in product management - I think my liberal arts education has enabled me to be a good "translator" between customer needs and technology teams. Learned human-centered design on the job and never looked back. Today I lead teams of service designers, facilitators and design educators and I love it.
posted by ersatzkat at 12:06 PM on February 28, 2022
posted by ersatzkat at 12:06 PM on February 28, 2022
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1. Law assuming you’re up for law school
2. Qualitative user research in tech, usually after a UX research boot camp
Outside of hum academia, the market is actually quite good in many areas, though who knows with the war situation how long that will hold.
posted by redlines at 11:39 AM on February 25, 2022