Help! English literature degree

[MissJimmysjumpers]

if you had an English literature degree and were really good at languages what could you do next?

DD is looking at A levels in English Lit, history, psychology and french. She recently had a careers chat which involved an English teacher who wanted to look at Russel group universities for English literature with her but no thoughts about what she might do with her degree or career inspiration

this has left DD, who is good at most things but particularly good at English even more confused, any thoughts welcome

I did English Lit at Oxford. My cohort work in education, publishing, television production and editing.

I started as an English teacher with my Lit&Lang degree. Progressed, moved into SLT and now have a civil service job which pays well. There’s still a lot of jobs and graduate programmes that will just want a degree.

Anything. Humanities degrees give you the ultimate transferable skills. An English degree allows her to keep her career options open. She should ask at Uni open days what graduates go into

This is also useful https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/telling-our-stories-better-online-gallery

You can do almost anything with an English degree, especially one from an excellent university.

Academia
Publishing
Journalism and writing in all its forms
Publishing and editing
Civil service
teaching
law conversion

are the obvious ones - but it's not limited to that! There are quite a few MN accountants who mention their English or history degrees!

It's akin to a degree in, for example, history, in that it's a generalised , not specialised or vocational degree : like most degrees .

I have an English literature degree
i work in the charity sector as a senior fundraiser

I have an English Literature degree and 'fell' into sales, worked for Yellow Pages for 18 years, which was a very good role at the time, worked in education, did some teacher training, an English MA and I'm now doing a PhD. An English degree can open a lot of doors directly related to the the subject and many that just ask for a graduate of any sort. If she enjoys it and is good at it I would recommend it.

I did English Lit. Now work in policy for a health charity. My classmates are now journalists, politicians, civil servants, academics, teachers, actors, lawyers and loads more ... It is a very transferable set of skills.

I agree with everyone else. Eng lit is a great degree, teaching you lots of transferrable skills.

Obvious places to go include:
Publishing (with a masters)
Comms or PR
Teaching
Journalism (she said hesitantly)
Editing
Librarianship

Less obvious
Law (with conversion)
HR
Admin eg civil service or NHS

My DD took Eng lit and works in a library. For sure she didn't need her degree to get that job but it is perfect for her and could lead to a masters and a higher-level role.

I have an English literature & language degree and I work in Communication/ Event management/Corporate Affairs for a large media organisation.

Comms/PR is a common route for anyone studying English and can be across many different sectors.

Thanks all, and are there particular universities she should look at? We are in the North but she is open to moving, just not inspired.

I disagree.

English degrees (without additional training, see accountant) have poorly paid outcomes compared to other degrees.

The biggest thing I would suggest is looking to see what jobs you can do as a English graduate- does she like any of the more likely options?

I always encourage people to looks far and work back to what you need to do to get there.

She feel strongly that she doesn’t want to teach and feels like this was the only option

This is what she’d like to do - have an idea about where she is going to work out what to do for a degree
it feels like school are pushing a Russel group English literature degree, for a degrees sake, but no thoughts on after

Teaching isn't the only option and I wouldn't recommend it as a career personally. Have a Google search of companies offering graduate schemes, you'll see a lot just require a 2:1 degree in anything, so for instance you could join a scheme with the police and be fast-tracked as a police detective.

Publishing in the international rights departments. They love people with languages. Do the English degree then live in France or Germany for a year. Then get experience in the sales department. She will be snapped up.

It really isn't.

The London book fair has just passed but it is a vast conference full of rights selling. People don’t tend to know about that side of publishing

Whatever she does don’t encourage her to teach. It’s a shit job.

That is in part because it is offered at almost every university. If you extracted students just from very high ranking universities, you'd find higher earnings....

It is also because of the nature of the degree , which attracts the less consumerist. And society doesn't reward altruism or artiness with high pay.

I have to say OP, few people know what they want to do at 16. Most do a degree 'for a degree's sake' as they want to continue learning, broaden horizons, increase opportunity, and improve future employment prospects.

I agree with a lot of what you say @Piggywaspushed . Highly ranking universities do have higher earnings, but as a whole those that get into higher ranking universities have better life chances anyway.

So many people go to university now, and it is so expensive, the average student loan is around 40k so I think the time of going to university because you love a subject (or find it easy) is no longer enough

I did an English degree, specialising in English Literature.

I now teach English as a foreign language to refugees and tutor online.

Hi OP, You might find the report below useful (see link). It summarises the stats regarding grad destinations 15 months after graduation, by broad subject area.

luminate.prospects.ac.uk/what-do-graduates-do#:~:text=The%20majority%20of%20graduates%20(59.6,left%20university%20the%20year%20before.

This is really interesting, thank you, I’ll get her to look at it.
she speaks fluent Spanish and is predicted 8 plus in GCSE German and French. She is drawn to French A level as a chance to deep learn another culture

Doesn’t have freedom of movement, but would love the idea of travel and needing languages

Very much depends on lots of factors. Eng lit is available in most places.

DD had offers from Warwick and Brum and loved both. A level mare left her in clearing and she went to Leicester which I would very much rate. Her tutor was amazing and all the eng lit staff were supportive.

I agree btw with @Piggywaspushed and others Eng Lit degree is valuable as "a degree" - lots of grad schemes want that in no specific subject.

I do think you need to love love love your subject tho - you will be studying it in great (minute!) detail for three years so it needs to inspire you. There's a great quote from a Sayers novel, hang on...

Here we go - Harriet Vane to a student (history not English!) who is unhappy:
'Still, as you've started here on History, you'd better worry on at it. It won't hurt you, you know. If you learn how to tackle one subject – any subject – you've learnt how to tackle all subjects.'