Hey Veeky Forums, what is a good, safe-ish major that I should choose as my second major besides English? The dream is to become a fiction writer eventually, but I don't want to be financially fucked in the future, because I would feel bad since my family's not that well off and is barely able to pay for my tuition in the first place. English is my real passion, but I feel obligated to also study something "safer," hopefully without having it disrupt my literature pursuits too much. I've been thinking about Economics. Engineering, from what I've heard, has too ridiculous a workload, especially in my particular college, and would probably prevent me from pursuing literature with intensity. Medicine would make me obligated to go to Med School. Sorry for the self-centered question, but I was wondering if you guys had any similar sort of experience and any ideas to help to resolve this shit.
Hey Veeky Forums, what is a good, safe-ish major that I should choose as my second major besides English...
Check this thread
Also if you're studying humanities in the US, I'd advise you to learn a new language and move elsewhere.
Finance or economics will give you a good ratio of difficulty in major to job prospects. You can also chad your way through those jobs
Anything STEM senpai. It's not good for a man to make literature his career.
Education
Share yr passion for lit with youth and make that shit cool and paletteable for them
this
Don't forget they're soul sucking.
>It's not good for a man to make literature his career.
That makes sense seeing as I generally do what isn't good for me.
I thought I wanted to do this but turns out I hate high school kids. and middle school kids.
You were a snotty piece of shit once too
You gotta be ready to ride the train and help alter some lives
Blow through your English degree and then look into some kind of trade school. Any career that involves an actual B.A. is going to require your full attention. It's competitive as shit out there.
OP- For what it's worth. I did the something similar. I majored in Economics & Philosophy. I majored Econ to get a job and Phil because it's what I was interested in. Econ degree ended up helping me get a job doing retirement plan shit (which I've been doing for a couple years now). Course load wasn't too bad and I didn't think econ was very difficult (despite the fact that I went to a good school and it was a competitive major).
Engineering or pre-med would be a lot more work than economics. With engineering you are 100% getting a good job but it's not really doable as a double major. My engineering friends had no life. Pre-med route is probably a little easier but still quite challenging and there's no guarantee. One of my close friends did this and is still applying for med school several years out of college despite an insanely high mcat and hospital experience. It's absurdly competitive.
Either way though, if you live in America, you're fucked. You'll probably have to toil away at some trendy bullshit startup as an unpaid intern or without benefits. Or maybe get some shitty sales job cold calling people. I am 25, so most of my peers are 2-3 years out of college and the vast majority of my friends are under-employed (only ones that aren't were the engineers or people who are still in school to get an english phd or something, and will quite possibly be under-employed once they are eventually out of school).
Hope this helps.
>You can also chad your way through those jobs
I fucking hate this about finance because I am too proud to do this and have extreme contempt for masculine/frat/jock/douche culture.
This is true, from personal experience.
>waaa engineering is too hard ;w;
that's the whole fucking point man, I'm so tired of you lazy ass niggas thinking that university is a time of self exploration and freedom and laziness. That is not the way the world works, in the real world you actually have to work, you can't be a hopeless romantic. You are probably the same type of niggas that think all education should be free, which I do agree with, but not when you go to school for fucking english which is just absolute bullshit, if you want to study literature JUST FUCKING READ IT, and instead study a STEM
I'm studying pure mathematics and double majoring in slavic languages and literature, this lets me actually have a useful skill after school, and allows me to pursue the humanities as well.
also im studying computer science on the side because the world is trending towards computers
tl;dr studying pure humanities is useless
>use
who you gonna call?
>you can also chad your way through those jobs
What does this mean, exactly, my main man
Underrated post
The safer path would be to study as many languages as possible to a business proficiency level, and eventually get in the meantime a bachelor in finance, accounting or economics. I recently read there's an ongoing shortage of German speakers, and that less interesting languages like Japanese or Dutch are still highly valuable. I managed to get a position in finance with a degree in so-called “pure” humanities and I'm pretty sure it's because I learnt two foreign languages. When I was in college, I thought English was spoken everywhere in the world, and surely all the business communications were written in it, but I got it wrong. It's the safer bet in my opinion but you can still try to get a STEM degree. I'm just afraid it will be harder if you don't like it, and unlikely to get you a great job if you don't graduate with exceptional marks.
Why not just become a teacher. Don't know how it is in yankland, but in the UK you can become a teacher with pretty much any degree. It's a steady profession, and you get plenty of holidays.
STEM
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E
M
>second major
dumbass.
Accounting, or take the CIMA/CFA certs.
>study lit on the side, it's useless to study in university
>majoring in lit
?
Bullshit through them by doing what looks like good work but amounts to pure air.
I am double majoring in it for fun, my primary major is mathematics, which takes up about 80% of my study time
My main argument was against purely studying humanities, since I think that is a waste
>he thinks pure mathematics can get him a job
Professional novelist here. You don't need an English or literature degree to write, but if you have a good instructor they can be an inspiration (especially if that instructor is a published author, they can answer lots of technical questions). One can read enough books on their own without the need to go to classes. Self-education is more important.
Learn a trade or something that makes good money because you're most likely not going to make it as a writer. It's nice to have a physical job while writing on the side because it sucks to go from sitting in front of an excel spreadsheet for eight hours to sitting in front of a word document for four more hours. I worked at a warehouse commandeering a forklift, made about $18 an hour, and I wrote before I came in for my shift. Very easy job, not mentally taxing, and still decent enough pay to do what I wanted as a single male. Even if I had a family we would could have been fine if my wife worked too, but we live in a cheap area.
Studying literature might seem like a natural choice for an aspiring writer, but in my experience, people in those classes tend to talk about writing more so than actually doing it. There's a lot of pretentiousness that can actually be stifling to creativity, because creativity comes when you take down a critical lens (literature classes exist solely to be critical). Just make sure you actually write, that's how you get better and make it.
Realize that if you want to make it in writing, you need to get started now. Read lots of books, wake up early before your classes and write at least two hours a day. Write any time you have downtime (I would email myself in between classes or on break, for example).
It would also help to know what kind of writing you're interested in. It's nigh impossible to make money writing unless you write genre fiction. Hopefully that's what you want to do because that's what most people are looking to read. Whether your aims are more literary or just to write an entertaining story, it's hard as fuck to make it and you're going to have to work harder than you ever had in your entire life.
>it's a STEMtard episode
>>so tired of you lazy ass niggas thinking university is a time of self exploration and freedom
>he doesn't know the difference between servile and liberal arts