Careers and Opportunities

This section of the handbook is not meant to provide advice on how to prepare résumés or other nuts-and-bolts matters.  It hopes, rather, to discuss and give a little perspective on (1) opportunities for UVM English majors who wish to enter graduate programs, and (2) opportunities for English majors going directly into the workplace.  In both cases, our majors have compiled a steady record of success.

English majors have obtained advanced degrees, and not just in English, from such schools as the following (mentioning doctoral degrees only): Brandeis, Columbia, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, Penn, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Stanford, SUNY-Buffalo, U Conn, UMass, and Yale. For information on applying to graduate schools, see below.

English majors who go directly to work lead equally interesting lives. Here (based on information furnished to and by the Alumni Office and thus incomplete) is what English majors from the Class of 1990 are doing: account executive, Young & Rubicam; deputy clerk, U.S. District Court; attorney; assistant editor, M. Shanken Communications; public school teacher (4); assistant professor of literature, Buena Vista College; scene constructor, Berkeley Repertory Theatre; advertising assistant, North American Outdoor Group; actress; actor; author; playwright; real estate salesperson; editor, Oxford University Press; researcher/reporter, Time Magazine; marketing co-coordinator for an architectural firm; senior legal assistant, National Life of Vermont; landscape gardener; partner, Green Mountain Sportscards; senior revenue analyst, Capital Cities/ABC.

Going back five years further, here is what some English majors in the Class of 1985 are doing: producer, CNN; press secretary to a committee of the U.S. Senate; distribution assistant, American Red Cross; writer, WGBN-Boston; benefits manager, Interleaf, Inc.; assistant professor of art history, Stanford University; mortgage officer, Chase Bank of Maryland; production manager, Travel Weekly; attorney (3); senior production engineer, Greenwood Publishing; riding instructor, Wild Horse Valley Ranch; public school teacher (3); physical education instructor, Loomis-Chaffee School; president, Kenya Tours; reference librarian, New York Public Library; director, Long Meadow Nature Center; naval officer; vice-president, Ascension Technology; program assistant, Appalachian Mountain Club; sportswriter, the Bradenton Herald.

Scattered across the years between these two dates we find (besides the more usual callings): a Border Patrol officer; a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Seals; a singer/songwriter with Rounder Records; a self-employed sculptor; a learning disabilities consultant; a graphic designer; a math teacher; and a self-described "radio personality" with KKFR-FM. You can see that an English degree can let you do (or cannot prevent you from doing)anything.

A more meaningful breakout would be one like this: of the 1,339 English major alums who reported, 390, or just about 30%,are involved in education somehow, whether as classroom teacher, school librarian, guidance counselor, administrator, or in some other pedagogical area; they range from grade school to university, and a number teach subjects other than English: archeology, history, Latin, Romance languages. 26% of our majors, 354, are in business and finance, including the self-employed;10% or 133 are in some area of journalism or publishing; 98--7%--are in government service (anything from a town librarian to the present Ambassador to Switzerland); 88--6 1/2%--are in various health fields  (including some M.D.s); 78--6%--are in law; and 50, or 4%, are involved in non-print media in some way. The remaining 148 represent a scattering of occupations, or they have provided inadequate information: what someone involved in Howling Dog Enterprises might be doing is anybody's guess.