If you have an English lit degree, what job do you do?

[OrlandoInTheWilderness]

As title! If you have a degree in English lit, what job are you currently doing and how useful have you found it to be?
Thanks!

Predictable, but English teacher! Well I did that for 12 years actually then left to set up my own business teaching privately. So very useful. I loved my lit course, I think looking back maybe I'd have liked to lecture in literature and continued studying rather than done teacher training.

Yes I think lecturing sounds like an interesting pathway. Glad to hear you enjoyed your degree!

Management consultant. Other friends are: literary agent; very senior PR in a global organisation; charity worker/part time journalist; police officer; editor of a national magazine; tenured academic.

We went to a Russel group university, early 40s, all got 1sts or 2:1s.

Ah that's a good mix of professions @FourStarsShine!

Oh and it’s very useful. Both in the ability to write convincingly and structure an argument, and in the general knowledge stakes. I usually pick up on any literary references in conversation or in the arts, and having studied a wide range of texts absorbed a lot of history, classics, theology along the way.

I'm a lawyer. I went to law school after working in sales and marketing for a while post-graduation.

Did a post grad in HR Management and work as an HR Manager. Degree has been very helpful for writing reports and policies /procedures and interpreting employment legislation!

Senior specialist role in a creative agency. I was at Oxford and recruited on the milk round. The degree was less useful than my maths A level.

PM for DD.

Comms manager. Useful in the way any degree that involves essay-writing would be I guess. I absolutely loved it though, so I'm glad I did it.

Managing Director for a start-up in London. An English Lit degree gave me the all-round skills to basically do anything.

Musician! Never used my degree other than for pub quizzes and grammatical pedantry.

Are you graduating OP? Choosing your degree? Changing career?

My best advice is to incorporate unexpected elements and skills into your CV. English Lit grads with thespian or editing hobbies are ten a penny whereas ones that can use Excel to a very high level, or speak and write in Chinese or Japanese are gold dust.

I went into the City and became an asset manager. Almost 30 years on, I'm now a freelance writer specialising in investment and finance.
I managed to talk my way into finance by emphasising one of the key skills from Eng Lit: sifting and analysing a body of evidence and then constructing a coherent argument. I'm not sure I'd even have got to interview with an English degree in today's environment!

I've got a first in English literature - the Russell Group hadn't invented itself (it's a self selected group of research universities so not that relevant to undergraduate English literature students anyway) when I graduated, but my university was ranked in the top ten for English literature.

I've only really used my degree directly to teach - I've spent quite a lot of my adult life teaching EFL and did also do the graduate teaching scheme and teach English and media in England for five years.

I also spent five years doing a back office role in an investment bank (my best paid role but only fun for a while and only rewarding financially, not in any other way).

I've moved abroad permanently and learnt another language and do a social work related role now and don't even speak English at work let alone use my English literature degree.

I've done other unrelated qualifications along the way.

I suppose in some ways I'm a model of what not to do, but on the other hand I've always been in work and my life's always been interesting, and I like variety!

Civil servant now but have been English Teacher, Advertising Manager, Charity Fundraising Manager, Social care policy worker in the past!

DD1 has an Eng Lit degree. She specialised in Gothic Literature. She has worked since leaving Uni for a renewable energy company in the billing department, writing the algorithms. She has just changed careers and is training on the job to be an accountant. She loved her degree.

English tutor in a college.

Lawyer. Currently working in government. I've found that I'm stronger in communicating in plain English than some of my colleagues. Also close reading and analytical skills can be very useful in interpreting legislation. Other friends went on to become lecturers and civil servants.

I'm a postdoc researcher in History, but until recently I was lecturing in English, and so I'd say it's pretty central to what I do.

Academic. Others from our cohort are journalists, director of an art gallery, a lawyer, a politician, an actor, an opera director, owns a PR agency, teachers, CEO of a major sports club.

I'm director of a Writing Center at a Chinese university, and the leader of a writing program in a partnership between our university and an American university. I also have an MA in Cultural Theory with a focus on philosophy in literature. I teach a lot of close reading skills as a route to analytical writing, so I use my degrees to some extent.

Editor. Author. Volunteer for charity.

The ability to whack out 2,000 original words while horribly hungover helps.

I work for the NHS. I don’t use my degree at all really!