Traditional Career Options
Certain more traditional career paths leading from an English major require a great deal of training and planning, both under- and postgraduate, so they are elaborated on below.
Lawyer
Secondary English Teacher
English as a Second Language Teacher
College Professor
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Lawyer
The skills that you will acquire as an English major--in reading, analyzing, researching, and writing--are equally useful in the practice of law, and successful English majors have always been good candidates for law school admission. As the Assistant Dean of Chicago Law School, Richard Badger, wrote many years ago,
Language is the lawyer's working tool and the best law students are those who have the ability to write and speak with precision, fluency, and economy. Not only must the student be able to communicate his or her own thoughts clearly, but he or she must have the ability to read and listen carefully with an eye and ear for fine points and subtle distinctions.
Literary study hones these skills, of course, and also encourages a necessary tolerance for ambiguity. In addition, courses such as Public Speaking, Advanced College Writing, Latin, Logic, and Principles of Accounting develop other abilities important in law. Although neither these nor undergraduate law courses will necessarily make your candidacy seem more attractive on paper, they will help you to succeed in law school.
Traditionally, it was possible to fix on the legal profession as a last-minute option during one's senior year of study, since it requires no set undergraduate pre-law curriculum. Today's very competitive market, however, makes it unlikely that anyone sporting a mediocre record--one lacking not only in distinction but in challenging courses--will be admitted to a reputable law school. Although grades and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores are perhaps the most important admission criteria, other indicators--an ambitious program of courses, the assumption of leadership roles in selected extra-curricular activities, and signs of good character--can make the difference. The acceptance of an invitation to the Honors Program, for instance, and the completion of its series of challenges--or a program heavy in 300- and 400-level courses both within and outside the major--may be taken as a sign that you possess the kind of drive needed in the legal profession.
If you are even vaguely contemplating the notion of taking up the law as a career, you should make an appointment to the College Pre-Law advisor early in your planning process.
The Office of Career Services maintains an extensive library of catalogs and other publications related to the law as a career. Students often do a legal internship, take an LSAT review course, research and visit law schools, and sign up for the LSAT's, all before senior year. The application process has become so complicated that it no longer possible to race through it at the last minute.
Secondary English Teacher
"I suppose I can always teach." English majors who choose to become teachers have often--and unfairly--been stigmatized as falling into the clichéd "those who can't do, teach" category. The reality, however, is rather different: the teaching of middle school and high school English should not be considered as a fall-back position, nor as the last resort of those who never quite felt engaged by literature. (Would you want such people teaching your children?) The ability to handle teenagers is a prerequisite but not sufficient in itself to permit both you and your students to flourish in the classroom: you must love and appreciate literature as well, and know how to read and analyze fiction, poetry, drama, and essays. So, if you can do, teach! English Education requirements and procedures...
English as a Second Language Teacher
Students interested in teaching English as a Second Language or in teaching English as a Foreign Language will find that there are graduate programs leading to a Master's degree in ESL/EFL offering theoretical and methodological training which will equip them to assume professional, instructional, and administrative roles in ESL/EFL programs both in the United States and abroad.
College Professor
Obviously you don't have to look far to observe one possible profession open to English majors. College and university teaching offers those who love to read and analyze literature a chance to share that love with undergraduates, graduate students, colleagues, and academic readers. Schools that value teaching over research focus a professor's energies on communicating with undergraduates and colleagues, while research universities may direct a professor's energies to graduate students and to academic readers beyond the walls of that institution. In all cases, you must love language--must love to read, to speak, and to write, and do them all well.