The Decline of the English Department

This is just an honest, curious question as a CS undergrad right now: what jobs are there for english majors?<p>As much as I might love reading and writing, and as much as I believe that a lot of literature is an overall human good, even writers &#38; scholars need to feed and clothe themselves, right?

Our society simply does not value intellectual achievement or learning as ends in themselves.<p>What is valued and rewarded is making money, entertaining, acquiring power, and being "practical", which the humanities are just not focused on.<p>The humanities are also constantly denigrated (especially by the right-wing, but also by many in the sciences). This trend is fueled largely by ignorance, but also somewhat by a reaction to the criticisms they see coming from the humanities departments towards the status quo, "traditional institutions", and the view of science and technology as savior (ie. scientism).<p>Given these attitudes, financial disincentives, and attacks, it's really no wonder fewer young people choose to major in the humanities.

"Despite last year’s debacle on Wall Street, the humanities have not benefited; students are still wagering that business jobs will be there when the economy recovers."<p>Business jobs come and go--humanities jobs never are, never were, and never will be there.

I am a native English speaker and an American. I would never major in English because the grades are too subjective. I would not want to put my future outside of my own hands.<p>I prefer my grades to be based on quantifiable data, not subjective gobbledy-gook.

Well, yes, but... Anyone wishing to assess the point reached by the English Departments in the days he mourns should also have a look at what a generation of poets and critics said of the Modern Language Association (Randall Jarrell and Edmund Wilson come to mind) or Ivor Winters's essay "What Are We to Think of Professor X".<p>What jobs are there? Well, there's law school--a number of English majors I knew took that route. One can try for a job in publishing, though that looks unpromising now. Or you can end up in the tech world

its true. the thing thats funny about this though is the understanding that if you go into English you're going to want to teach others. but apparently we English majors have failed.<p>i have an English degree... but I LOVE complex problem solving... hence the love for programming...<p>its difficult to pitch the old man and the sea to anyone with 1/2 a brain.

tl;dr