So exactly how employable is a middle-aged English major with a minimum wage job history?

“What Employers Think of Liberal Arts Graduates”

“Employers are seeking workers who adapt well to change, communicate effectively, use critical and analytical thinking techniques to solve complex problems, and interact constructively with others in the workplace. A liberal arts student can take information that is given, break it down, build on it, create from it, and produce a project — an end result.”

An English major equals a problem solver. So there.

An English degree and $5 will get you a latte.

That was several years back, but now I make a healthy income. I also went on to have my masters in computer science partially paid for by employers. The masters has helped keep me employed and has boosted my income, but the truth is that I was already firmly established in my career before I got it.

The majority of people I work with in IT don’t have a degree in computer science. There are a lot of other liberal arts majors here. There are even *gasp* people who got into IT careers with nothing more than a high school diploma.

I say — major in what you love. Get a job anyway.

P.S. — Not that I particularly love IT. But that’s a different story for a different day.

The problem isn’t with majoring in English. It’s with not being career savvy. A lot of Arts majors are kind of flaky about career planning. And so they end up making a small amount of money because they aren’t strategic in spinning their experience and skills.

I felt like I would actually learn how to be a better thinker and writer as an English major.

Now, granted, I did end up becoming an English teacher (apparently the all-too-obvious occupation for the English major).

– Karim Baz

I double-majored in English and Biology in college because they were my two favorite things. Now, I work as a Web Developer because it’s something I got into in my spare time and something that I love to do (and happen to be good at). I earn a decent enough living that I can support my family on a single income. I’m glad I took their advice way back when – you never know how your life will turn out

I fix up houses and rent them out in my spare time. If I didn’t have monthly payments such as mortgage payments, water, electricity, gas and other regular payments on autopilot, I would be locked up in my office at the end of each month endlessly writing checks.

Autopiloting as many payments as you can is the only way to go.