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Monday, April 30, 2012

Nonfiction: I'm an English Major - Now What?

I've been reading I'm an English Major - Now What? off and on for the last week or two.  I started when I decided it was time to start looking for a job.  I've been out of school for the last year, which has been great.  I've got a good part time job and work with great people, but I think it's time to start looking for what I'd like to do for the next little while.  And the place to start is by looking at the kinds of things I can do with my degree.

I'm an English Major - Now What? is exactly what it sounds like.  It goes through the obvious career choices for people with (undergraduate) English degrees (such as teaching, journalism, pursuing postgraduate education, etc).  It lists the pros and cons of each option, and tells you what kind of person is best suited for that type of work.  What I really liked was the latter half of each chapter where Tim Lemire interviewed English majors who have those jobs.  It was great reading about their experiences.

At the end of the book were a couple of appendices as well.  These had information on the job search itself, such as what to consider including on your resume, and a list of other resources for further reading.  All in all, I'm an English Major - Now What? was an excellent read for someone like me who is trying to figure out my next step now that school is over.

As an aside, I bought I'm an English Major - Now What, along with Great Jobs for English Majors by Julie DeGalan and Stephen Lambert, a few years ago when I first went into English.  I don't know why, but I put them away and only recently pulled them back out.  I'm not really sure if I'm going to read Great Jobs for English Majors; I flipped through it and it didn't really appeal to me as much.

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