Convince me not to major in English

Convince me not to major in English.

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Which country do you live in

>okay your final project is to write a 200 essay why all the great writers are racist and sexist and rapists and why Rapi Kurr is the voice of our generation

Scotland

Not accurate.

Because jobs are hard and stuff.

If you want to teach then its decent but the wages arent amazing, curriculum can be stifling... You dont need a degree to be a writer or a copy writer.

English is a niche degree in terms of practicality. I graduated with honors top of my class but it doesnt really mean shit outside of the insular domain of academia. May as well focus on internships apprenticeships or co-op.

Also sales jobs straight out of HS are legit good. Learn quick no exp needed and that way you have NO debt. Get somewhere good like a ISP or dealerships you can get a career. Or takes a few month courses for a 1000 dollars to be a realtor and also have a lucrative career.

You won't make any money. Or rather, it will be harder to make money than somebody who got a useful degree, and you have a low chance of actually working in your field.

You are also wasting money you don't even have getting a degree in something anyone can learn on their own, versus spending money you don't have learning something that actually requires a degree (like medicine or something, for qualifications AND because you can't just learn that shit at home on the internet) so you can pay it back quickly later. AT VERY BEST you might be able to finagle your way into a career in academia if you study English and want to work in your field. Good luck.

Just get an actual job with an actual degree and study English on the side bro, books are not worth poorfagging your life over or even studying as your primary academic pursuit. All the non-douches and non-brainlets study other things and just use literature to enrich their lives. Don't you want to be useful for something other than your sick literary analysis skillz?

Art doesn't have any practical purpose in our technocratic society. If the profession you aspire towards doesn't make me a more comfortable and efficient consumer, I am going to get very sullen indeed and will actively discourage you at every available opportunity. This will make me feel much better about being an untalented insect who chose to waste my life doing things that didn't really make me happy

But really, universities are businesses. They see you as a wallet and nothing more, so don't go into debt for something you won't get a return on, especially if you're in a shithole country

>You are also wasting money you don't even have getting a degree in something anyone can learn on their own
You're wrong there. The value of a degree lies, in part, in that it is proof that you were motivated to spend the time working towards something like that. It's proof of commitment -- something you can put on your resume.

Studying English in NL, going on to Cambridge for my graduate degree. Was a programmer, did IT for a while, but really just want to read. Doing honors now, going well. Why waste your life doing something you hate?

Don't go to college unless either 1) you're getting at least 75% scholarship or 2) you're over 30.

Convince me not to major in philosophy and minor in English.

wew lad

actually it's morel ilike

>your final project is to write a 7-10 page paper explaining why Charles Dickens was secretly a Marxist using specific quotes from Oliver Twist and academic articles as evidence and as long as you don't plagiarize anything and make the paper at least somewhat interesting to read you'll get an A

It's a good choice only if you've done an internship. Do what you want with your life OP, but there are other degrees that will much more easily land you a salary you can live off of.

>You're wrong there. The value of a degree lies, in part, in that it is proof that you were motivated to spend the time working towards something like that. It's proof of commitment -- something you can put on your resume.

My point was a maths degree serves that purpose a lot better than an English degree, and that you're better off just studying lit on your own for personal enrichment.

I should have mentioned that there is a case for formal study in the sense that going to university for English will give you a leg up over an autodidact. I'm just saying IMO it isn't really worth it and I'd rather be a mathematician making good money and studying literature as an autodidact, versus a barista who can school that mathematician on Chaucer. And it's not like having the English degree automatically makes you more of a patrician anyway, in the end it's up to the individual and there are plenty of humanities grads who are less informed about their subject than some random business major who is better read while he laughs at the bank. Priorities.

stop being cucked by the brits, don't worship their language

*english

kek

go into celtic meme language studies with your welsh and irish brethren or something

resist the eternal anglo

There's this thing called "money". You need it to live on. It's something you won't have with only an English degree.
I strongly recommend that you have a viable plan B.

There's literally no job options that are guaranteed and not based on individual merit.

Anything involving math or computers will guarantee you lucrative and near boundless job opportunities, as these are very static, straightforward fields of study.

On the other hand, one option allows creative freedom while the other doesn't, unless you are smart enough to be a theoretical mathematician or ground breaking computer programmer.

More like between 20-30 pages..

Go out and spend all your liquid assets on a fake police badge then demand entry into the post office for an investigation.
Afterwards, while sitting on the sidewalk you were booted out onto, open your wallet and let the moths fly out, studying the vacuous impoverished interior.
Once you are feeling sufficiently hopeless, head down to the local library to use their free computers to go online, being sure to get side tracked into a bar on the way.
Inside, be sure to ask for an empty glass, you'll need it, and sit alone. Don't bother getting a drink--you can't even afford a napkin. Rather, use the time wisely by staring into your distorted reflection in the side of the glass, slowly filling it with the rogue tear or two that sneak down your face. At least you have something to drink.

Or just read the above as a metaphor for life with a degree in English

Major in Linguistics instead.

If I get a degree in English while autodidacting programming could I then get a computer science masters and then be okay? UK btw.

I find these kinds of posts telling about how poor the education system is. It makes me sad because I see it a lot with undergrads who fail to interact with the real world outside of university or accept the insignificance of their degree.

Basically, your field of study is unimportant. You need to identify what you'd like to be doing after university and figure out a way to get in with a company who might hire you one day. Now that can be volunteering, internships, apprenticeships, whatever. Even setting up a Youtube channel will look better on your CV than just your degree subject. If you're a programmer, work on some projects and actually complete them.

My advice is to make a CV, look at it, and identify why it's weak. If you can't fill that shit out then it's crap and you won't get a job regardless of whether you're studying English Lit or Comp Sci. The myth that you can walk into a job based simply on the fact you're paying £9000 is one of the most dumb ass things today.

Although, don't blame people; university sets itself up as incredibly important when it's not. All those essays. All dem exams. You need to do really well user! It's all fabricated by academics who couldn't survive a day outside of campus.

Obviously don't follow my advice if you want a life in academia. In that case, follow your dreams.

OP's pic is the job market

probably shouldn't attend college at all tbqh m8

A major in english is just fucking reading.
Keep reading and major in something pratical.
People won't be able to tell anyway

Which uni would you go to?

this is the best advice you're going to get OP
feel free to go to university and study english literature, but in your first year(preferably just before) you should go through the mental exercise of looking at jobs you want and wondering whether your CV will cut it

do not assume your CV will build itself on its own as you do your degree, be active, write a couple of articles for the uni or local newspaper, carry out some kind of project independent of your degree

doing these things will also make you friends and possibly even get you laid

Lowland Scots are Northumbrian Ango-Saxons you braindead /pol/cuck

> The myth that you can walk into a job based simply on the fact you're paying £9000

Back in the days you could walk into a job without even paying a penny.

Not really. Maybe like 20 years ago.

Senior year english major is pretty cozy.
As are the dumb CW classes i got to take periodically, not so much for the educational component or whatever but more so for the incentive to write and the constant flow of good essays i got to read. In all honestly tho i had like one class that actually taught me anything interesting/that i couldnt learn myself. And that was my sophomore year. If you do it, be a double major. And yeah all the job prospects are pretty grim but honestly i live in an area where being a barista or, at worse, being in food service generally really isnt that bad. Just gotta be willing to really think down the road because if there's one thing the major doesn't give you, it's oppurtunities.

nah, majoring in English is fine as long as you want to die of hunger
>havent even beat hexagonest
lol what a pleb
this too unless ur not an americuck
though I have to admit, Rupi Kaur REALLY IS the voice of our generation, and this says a lot about our current state

Literally no jobs.

Nah

it's nearly useless, other than being a liberal arts degree redeemable for a lifetime supply of white collar obs that could be swapped for literally any other liberal arts degree, except in the extremely rare event that you have a 99th percentile skill level in the field and the social know how to scoop up scholarships and establish decent rapport with the faculty to set up a successful grad school experience and be a good candidate for professorship.

hate to be the one to say it, but that's probably not you.

English is actually not a major, with two caveats. The first is that many English programs either aren't rigorous and won't actually impart any useful skills. Basically, you need to learn how to write. If all you're doing is reading basic bitch literature and writing phoned-in essays, you're wasting your time and money.

The second is that jobs you get as an English major -- like said, interchangeable white collars jobs (technical writer, copywriter, editing a trade publication or internal newsletter, etc) aren't pretty shitty unless you have some other skill (speak a foreign language? Get paid a little more, to translate dishwasher manuals from Chinese!). You can also be a schoolteacher.

Pursuing a "literary career", even one as basic as trying to work for a publishing house or periodical (let alone a professor or, dear God, an author) is probably an exercise in hopelessness unless you're really good (be honest) or are independently wealthy.

1: it's a shitty degree, you're pretty much paying $15000+ a year for a fancy book club

2: you can study literature on your own time, better then what you get at uni. The school of resentment meme is true in most places, at my school people barely read the cannon in literature courses since they try to put more emphasis on women and non white writters

3: most of your colleges will be plebs. Most people I've met from the literature department at my school are "I only read YA" types who don't even like what they read in class

ment to say colleagues not colleges

No one cares. Sure you are better off than a guy with no degree who did nothing for four years, (except the debt) but you really don't get any automatic points for just having a useless degree. You might have learned many skills, but it is not apparent to your employer from you just having a degree.

washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/20/only-27-percent-of-college-grads-have-a-job-related-to-their-major/?utm_term=.62f7862a6c2d

I don't really think Veeky Forums is a great place to ask for advice about this. You'd honestly have better luck seeking out someone who actually majored in English and get their actual opinion on it. Whenever I see threads like this I have no idea if any of these people who say you'll be poor have any personal experience in it or if they are repeating what they've been told. College is less about the skill set you have and more about giving you the right tools to succeed in life. An English degree from the right place would improve your reading, writing, and critical thinking and if you think you can use those skills to survive in the world then go for it I guess. Im not one to talk either though, I'm just getting ready to transfer for an English degree now. I have my doubts about it of course, mostly because of how fucking expensive it is. Everyone wants to hear that you're majoring in Computer Science or Bidness because that's really the extent of how they perceive college; a place that gives you very specific skills to be piegon-holed into a very specific job. But they don't think that maybe college is more about helping you develop intellectually as a person, which is truly one of the greatest appeals of the humanities. I feel the doubt OP and I'm not even sure if you should take what I'm saying as true because I'm just an inexperienced as you are. But try to remember that the average age on this board is 19 and most of them just repeat what everyone else says all the time so why would right now be any different? It's good that you're asking here, but I highly suggest you seek out some people who found the degree fulfilling and talk to them about their experience. Whatever happens OP I wish you good luck in your endeavors. It's hard being passionate about these things in our time but maybe having faith in them is just what is necessary to gain their full potential.

If you’re dumb enough to have to be convinced you’re a lost cause

It's possible that one day, you will want enough savings in the bank to support a family.

A philosophy degree is still worth getting, r-right?

No.

You could always apply for a job at a small town newspaper

Name one benefit? An English degree is absolutely useless unless you want go on to graduate work in a related field. I got a BA in English and I'm only qualified to work minimum wage jobs

What about a Professional/Technical Writing degree?