Reply to Majoring in English—why so much disrespect?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Current English major and although I do get bored with Victorian novels I can’t imagine studying anything else. I have a plan of what I want to do and I’m happy. My major has set me back pre-professionally (no good internships), but I love writing and that’s what I want to work on. I also want to work on my critical thinking skills. I’m going into debt, but at least I’ve learned things I never thought I’d learn. :) Would I prefer a major that was better suited to my career? Maybe! But, I won’t have this level of learning and exploring again so I’ll use college for that.[/quote]
 How do you expect to pay your debts off? Hoping for another D potus who will have taxpayers pay off your debt?

Also, there are many many majors you can study that teach critical thinking skills, and where you will be able to get a decent paying job and not expect taxpayers to foot your bill.[/quote]

I completely disagree with your assessment; English majors are absolutely employable. In fact, among the degrees that develop critical thinking and writing skills, I’d argue English is the strongest.

In my own career, I actively hire for those exact abilities: critical thinking, reading comprehension, and clear writing. English majors consistently excel in these areas and make excellent employees. The same goes for history majors and lawyers, even though my field has nothing to do with history. While many majors encourage analytical thinking, strong reading and writing skills are surprisingly rare.

DH is an engineer and it's a skill most of his employees are sorely lacking.

Personally, I’ve never once been unemployed as an English major. I earn a strong salary (currently $170k) and enjoy an excellent work/life balance[/quote]
Most English majors go on to graduate school to be employable.

Most majors teach critical thinking skills. Do you think a CS/Eng major doesn't learn critical thinking skills? [/quote]
Not most, that’s just not true, but that is how liberal arts degrees work. Physics is just as unemployable without grad school or a ton of coursework outside your subject. Same with Chemistry. Same with Philosophy. Same with History.[/quote]

Humanities: Literature, history, philosophy, languages, religion.
Social Sciences: Psychology, sociology, political science, economics, anthropology.
Natural Sciences: Biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics.

Most of those require a graduate degree to get a decent paying job.

My brother was a physics major at a public ivy. He had to get a graduate degree in EE to get a job.

I got a BBA and was able to get a good paying job just out of college at a no name state u.   I then took some programming courses, and we both ended up in the tech field, with me making 2x more than him because I also had a business background that I combined with my programming skills. That was more marketable than his generic coding skills.  This was in the heyday of the dotcom boom in the 90s in silicon valley when I started earning six figures.

Now, part of this is personality. I'm much more of a go getter than he is, but part is also background knowledge.  After 20 years, I still make about 2x more than he does.[/quote]

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