What can you do with an English major? (continuing series)

As we embark on another school year, English majors who are juniors and seniors (or their parents) are asking this question with greater urgency, while incoming students may be questioning their choices.

Just a moment to point out (again) the encouraging guidance of For English Majors, whose most recent post notes one of the human elements in business productivity and leadership that a literary education may provide:

Fortunately for all of us who claim to be human beings, motivation is more complicated than that and can’t be cranked into high gear for groups of people using formulas provided by “experts.”  The secrets to fathoming motivation live many places.  One of them is within the pages of great books.   So if you’re reading some, consider that you may, indeed, be preparing yourself to be in business leadership.

Add the additional detailed advice of Jobs for English Majors. A recent post focuses on new directions in editorial careers:

Gone are the former staples of story meetings at which editors debated only amongst themselves which stories to include in the magazine. These days, research using services like Google Trends — which provides insights into what users are searching for and thus, which stories are likely to capture the attention of Web surfers — fill up an increasing amount of every editor’s day.

An English major thinking about a future in professional writing/editing will have to add technical skills beyond word-processing to his or her resume.

William Blake: I don’t understand him either

…but I still like his poetry. I’m pleased to be teaching the “Romantics to 20th c.” survey this summer, and am starting, conventionally, with Blake. I even like his pompous prophetic stuff—some of it, anyway—the parts that I can make some kind of sense of. I’m bold enough to say that I don’t think Blake understood Milton nearly as well as he thought he did (famous quote: “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” [The Marriage of Heaven and Hell]), and also that most people—including me—don’t understand Blake nearly as well as they think they do. Most of us have grasped the inspired bits that shine clearly, or pieces that seem clear, but perhaps have been taken out of context. And with Blake, there’s always more context.

When I teach this survey, we do tackle the Songs of Innocence and Experience and pick through The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (because “Without Contraries is no progression…”), but don’t even try to talk about his elaborate mystic symbolic systems, and so on. To a great extent, I see Blake’s writings as an experience in poetic sensation. That’s probably wrong, too.

Nevertheless, for example, consider how the poem which is now known as “Jerusalem” has become totally embedded in English cultural consciousness, apparently on the force of the imagery in the first and last two verses, and having been set to a stirring Elgar tune, even though it asks rhetorical questions to which the factual answer is (repeatedly) “No,” and otherwise is fairly empty of orthodox theological content. Nevertheless, it gets you every time (I like the way this particular vid connects the lyric with a variety of English people and settings without making it overly “romantic” or pastoral):

And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among those dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor Shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

Poetry.

English majors–what to do?

I cannot believe how many hits this blog gets from people looking for “what to do with an English major.” No, I can believe it—but seriously, folks—the answer remains what it was when John Henry Newman wrote “The Idea of an University” (I paraphrase): Anything you want to do—although, admittedly, you may have to pick up a few additional skills along the way, like money management.

Here’s John Milton on what to do with all that literary knowledge:

In the cultivation of literature is found that common link, which, among the higher and middling departments of life, unites the jarring sects and subdivisions into one interest, which supplies common topics, and kindles common feelings, unmixed with those narrow prejudices with which all professions are more or less infected. The knowledge, too, which is thus acquired, expands and enlarges the mind, excites its faculties, and calls those limbs and muscles into freer exercise which, by too constant use in one direction, not only acquire an illiberal air, but are apt also to lose somewhat of their native play and energy. And thus, without directly qualifying a man for any of the employments of life, it enriches and ennobles all. Without teaching him the peculiar business of any one office or calling, it enables him to act his part in each of them with better grace and more elevated carriage; and, if happily planned and conducted, is a main ingredient in that complete and generous education which fits a man ‘to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.’

Yes, you’ll probably have to do some tweaking of your resume, your application letter(s), and your interviewing skills to sell that to prospective employers, but according to the University of Delaware Career Services Center,

Approximately 25 percent of students majoring in English go on to graduate study in fields such as law, library science, literature or journalism. The skills that many English majors develop in articulation, written communication and analysis are valued by employers in banking, sales, insurance, lobbying, labor relations and social service fields. There are also job opportunities in journalism, publishing and editing, technical writing, advertising, teaching and public relations.

To find these opportunities, go to your college/university career services center and hold them down until they help you. Or, you could just do this, and hope for the best.

But remember that you have skills that may actually be more in demand than ever:

We’re living in complicated times, and I can’t help but think they’re going to get more complicated and more difficult before some light shines in the distance. Getting some idea what it all means depends, in part, on learning from people who have some idea (not “pundits,” by the way). The ability to read, really read, undaunted by complexity, turn of phrase or length of thought, puts you in a position of making some sense of convoluted, technical and controversial ideas and events

Add to your list of advantages: Clarity and reasoning (about complicated subjects), logic, expression and patience (with long passages). You don’t suppose we’d have any reason in work and in life to call on those abilities right about now, do you? (ForEnglishMajors)

I’ll be saluting a number of local English majors and others as they graduate today. Several are already bound for graduate school and other destinations. Others still looking. Here’s wishing each of them success and happiness as God guides them.

April…apparently actually cruel

Gratuitous T.S. Eliot quote:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. (“The Waste Land” 1-4)

And that’s the best I can do to explain why there are no posts beyond some rather lackadaisical twittering. The short headlines:

1. New Joss Whedon-TV-related anthology Buffy and Angel Conquer the Internet, ed. Mary Kirby-Diaz, includes my essay “I’ve Got a Little List, or, ‘You Guys Wanna Team Up and Take Over SunnydaleU?’” as well as several other investigations into online fandom.
2. Last week of classes begins. We seem to be ending earlier than usual this year. According to recent article in campus paper, still no definite word on where my department will go when our office building is demolished. Comforting!
3. Bringing home new cat tomorrow. Hope I don’t regret it, but he had that je ne sais quoi. Current cat will be so surprised! But he’s been missing his little buddy.

Back to work!

New MLA style

It’s here!  Well, actually, it arrived last year with the 3rd ed. of the MLA Style Manual, but now the 7th ed. of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, used by many high school and college students, is available and the revisions are also appearing in many, if not all, college rhetorics and handbooks.

The new system is much the same as before in terms of using parenthetical references. The big change is in designating the form of sources as “Print” or “Web”—and all online sources require only the “Web” indicator. Much simpler, if less specific.

What can you do with an English major? Go to med school!

Seriously. Get your M.D. and be a doctor. Do you know how many doctors have also become great writers of fiction and non-fiction? Many, many.

And an English major’s writing skills can be useful to a doctor as well:

Physicians actually write all the time too…. The case history, or progress note, is the basic unit of medical practice; it’s something doctors work on constantly, and students learn from the first year to see a patient, hear her story, distill it into a chief complaint or main narrative, and write it down. It’s not unlike the process of writing fiction, Lam says: “The art of figuring out the medical narrative is, on one hand, to be very intuitive, instinctual, open, and expansive, and, on the other hand, to be very reductionist.”

While practicing medicine may help the aspiring author gain greater writing skills, the act of writing may help the doctor become a better one. Adrian, who set out first to study medicine and says he discovered writing as a detour along the way, thinks it’s good for physicians to spend time in other people’s heads “even if it’s in a deranged, imaginative way.”

College students who find themselves equally drawn to literature and sciences may want to think about an English major with a Biochemistry or Biology minor. Also interesting to note that many medical schools include a humanities or “literature and medicine” course as a required elective in the curriculum.

Just write it

Yes, it’s summer, but a teacher’s work never ends. People just think we have long summer vacations. Forget it! We’re either teaching summer school (OK, I’m not actually doing that this year . . . so far), or planning next fall’s classes, or doing some other kind of research, or doing some administrative task for the college. Because we are dedicated to our vocations.

And with that in mind, I must post this little 60-second free-writing exercise site, which seems both educational and entertaining—perfect for summer! Seriously—only takes a minute! Try it, and see your results immediately!

Sumer is i-cumen in

In the south, it’s “lhude singe mockingbird,” even though we have “cuccu”s, they aren’t nearly as remarkable as the English ones. So, exams and final papers are done, grades are filed, graduation and its celebrations have passed. We said farewell to several of our finest English majors, as we do every year. Some have plans, some–are still planning, but we expect they’ll do well whatever they do.

I’ll be cleaning up my office (or at least organizing the clutter a bit), preparing the courses I’ll be teaching this coming fall, and writing a paper for a conference in June. Not necessarily in that order.

What are you doing this summer?

Thursday things

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days this semester, so I haven’t been able to alliterate as regularly as I’d like. Nevertheless.

Things I’m thinking about today:

• preparations for the composition/literature students’ presentations on metafiction and graphic fiction.
• part 2 of the Postcolonial Lit. course viewing of Lagaan.
• planning to see Persepolis tomorrow with friends
• preparations for other things I’m teaching

And the three stacks of essays I’ll have to grade at the end of today.

In encouraging news, the CU Multicultural Council saw successful results for the second annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.

Once more with English majors

Campbell offers two “pre-law” majors: Government/Pre-law and English/Pre-law. (Some students major in Criminal Justice as a preparation for law school, but it’s more clearly a pre-professional degree.) In the past, almost every time prospective students would visit campus, if they had indicated an interest in “pre-law,” they would be funneled willy-nilly to the History/Government orientation/advisement sessions. Occasionally, an English professor would go over to the History department and ask, “Is anyone here interested in English/Pre-law?” Now and then, one or two hands would go up—they didn’t realize they’d had a choice. Fortunately, things are done differently now.

The Princeton Review notes that law school doesn’t require a “pre-law” major for admission:

If you major in English [emphasis added] or history, you’ll still be on the right track. Crucial to a Pre-Law major are critical reading, writing, and thinking skills. After all, as a lawyer, your job will require drafting cogent arguments and solutions to problems, then communicating those arguments and solutions effectively to persuade and convince a judge or jury.

In fact, you can major in almost anything that includes these kinds of critical reading, writing, and thinking skills, and that will also provide you with a breadth and depth of knowledge you can apply to legal issues.  The American Bar Association also notes the importance of general research skills and the ability to read and analyze lengthy, complex materials—for example, Victorian novels, the plays of William Shakespeare, or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English.

One university  with an entire college devoted to criminal justice recently realized that reviving its English major would give their students good value for money. One reason:

When the time comes to apply to law school, as nearly 30 percent of students there say they plan to do, what’s often missing is a record of analytic study, as honed through a series of literature and writing courses.

In short, one of the many, many things you can do with an English major is to go to law school. Once you do that, all the fun is over, but at least you will have enjoyed your undergraduate days. And perhaps, one day, you’ll write a novel like The Firm, make bazillion dollars, and leave the lawyers to fight it out while you go on to write best-sellers about how awful they are! (But note that John Grisham majored neither in English nor in Government before applying to law school: he was an accounting major!)