Letters to a Young B.A.
Yesterday, I gave this advice to a student of mine who is pursuing a B.A. in English. I'm sure I omitted many, many things.
- Get an internship or summer job at some stalwart industry in the cultural field. In literature, this boils down to publishing or radio-- both fine careers for the Ivy Leaguer with a BA, but easier to break into when you already have some experience.
- Learn more about media and software. I can't tell you how many jobs for writers/lit majors also include either HTML/web knowledge or (even more often) public relations/advertising experience.
- A PhD in literature should be a last rather than a first resort. ;)
1 comment:
I second the HTML knowledge. Working for a large corporation I see a lot of entry level type jobs that require HTML knowledge. Even in my last job where I analyzed environmental data I used HTML...well actually I had to learn it on the job. Fortunately I was at a company where I could do that. At another company someone else may have already had that experience and I would have been passed over.
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