Career SeekingWhat Can You Do with an English Major?

10 years. Really?

• Technical Writing

• Corporate Communications

• Information Management

• Communication Strategies

Business World

• Whitewater World• Improving Efficiencies• Adding Value• Human Resources• Work-Life Balance• 2 week notice

It is better to crush than to be loved.

Unique Contribution

The Invaluable English Major• We are explorers of human meaning-making. • We are story-tellers reflecting back to the

world its own definition of humanity. • We are creators who find sense in paradoxes,

unanswered questions, and unyielding curiosity.

• We learn the satisfactions and wonder of a passionately and skillfully rendered poem, novel, or single sentence.

• We embrace ambiguity as stability, for we know we live in an ambiguous world.

• We are of human meaning-making. explorers • We are story-tellers reflecting back to the

world its own definition of humanity. • We are who find sense in paradoxes

unreators answered questions, and unyielding curiosity.

• We learn the satisfactions and wonder of a passionately and skillfully rendered poem, novel, or single sentence

• We embrace ambiguity as stability, for we know we live in an ambiguous world.

Do we have a Monopoly?

Distinctive, high-demand competencies: • critical thinking, creativity,

interpretation, verbal dexterity, persuasiveness, precision, clarity, empathy, and more.• Professional writers vs.

professionals who write

Be the Solution

• Mit Romney• Conan O’Brien• Barbara Walters• Justice Clarence Thomas• Sigourney Weaver• Matt Damon

• Statistically, no one sticks to their field anyway.• Get a degree that really prepares

you for Machiavellian business. • Skillfully render ambiguity,

meaning-making, and paradox.• Define, stabilize, and scope out

unanswered business problems.

Four Recommendations

• Quantify how many pages you wrote, student projects you completed, English classes you took in one semester.

Four Recommendations

• Remember the names of your English peers and meet students in other departments. That is your network.

Four Recommendations

• Obtain professional writing samples that showcase your capacity to analyze ambiguity and paradox.

(Learn to create a professional portfolio…unlike this one.)

Four Recommendations

• Develop technical skills and learn computer software to increase your value to the workplace.

Four Recommendations

• Quantify how many pages you wrote, student projects you completed, English classes you took in one semester.• Remember the names of your

English peers and meet students in other departments. That is your network.

• Obtain professional writing samples that showcase your capacity to analyze ambiguity and paradox.• Develop technical skills and learn

computer software to increase your value to the workplace.