5 ms·

True, but I'd wager the most lucrative forms of writing (outside the lottery win of a fiction bestseller or successfully navigating the Hollywood game) are only

by jraines 16y ago

True, but I'd wager the most lucrative forms of writing (outside the lottery win of a fiction bestseller or successfully navigating the Hollywood game) are only minimally related to the passions that drive people to major in English. Majoring in English to write marketing copy is like majoring in CS to write soundboard Android apps. It'll help, but ...

Duff 16y ago
Majoring and doing well in English develops good analytical and analysis skills. You learn to read between the lines -- it's not a trivial field of study. Also, going to college is supposed to be about training your mind. Writing an Android app doesn't require a CS degree, but getting a CS degree instills certain habits that enable you to succeed in programming. If you want job training, go to welding school.
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  You can develop your analytical and writing skills in law, too, with the difference that there's a clear career path if you want to take it. Here in Australia, law is mostly taught as an undergraduate degree. It has essentially taken over the role of a liberal arts degree.
  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    I majored in English and I'm working as a paralegal... I don't know if there are cultural differences, but in the US there are plenty of English majors who go to law school, I actually think I know more of them than actual Political Science majors.
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      It's a different system. In Australia law is taken as an undergraduate degree. You leave high school and enrol directly in law. When you finish, if you want to be a lawyer, you either get a Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice or take an associateship.
  - sien 16y ago
    That's a big overstatement. Arts is very easy to get in to in Australia. Law is far harder. At most of Australia's top Universities you have to be in the top 0.5% of high school students. Admittedly a large number of Law Grads use Law as an engineering decree for government and other administrative work, but still.
    - jacques_chester 16y ago
      I think we're on a tangent here. My point is that law is at least as good as teaching "soft" analytic skills as english literature, with the happy side-effect that it comes with a career path built in if you want it. As for getting into law, there are universities outside the Group of 8 who'll accept lower scores.
- noonespecial 16y ago
  Humf. I took many semesters of welding and it taught me a great deal about how the human world is bodged together at the very lowest levels. Welding as a major is as hard a science as Mechanical or Electrical engineering. Its two parts mechanical engineering, one part chemistry and one part electrical engineering. Lives almost always depend on your work, there's rigorous certifications and civil engineers treat you with almost religious respect. I'm just sayin'.
  - veritgo 16y ago
    I'm really liking this thread. Everytime someone tries to dismiss a major or course as being somehow inferior, another person chimes in with a view point that blows said dismissal out of the water. I'm sure there are CS majors now in the workforce that just crank out their requisite number of lines each day, the work that many like to deify as an analytical blend of art and science becoming a routine drag. And there are welders who take pride in their work and are treated with religious respect by civil engineers. Maybe it's more about the person than the major.
    - hga 16y ago
      CMU is big into big robots (as opposed to e.g. MIT's Randy Brooks' little robots), and in one book or article on their program one of their CS undergraduates who was "perfect" at welding stainless steel was mentioned. "I don't think we're going to let him graduate", one of his professors said in jest.
  - Duff 16y ago
    I'm not knocking welders, but if you want to go to school and come out with a specific job, you go to a school that turns you into a specialist, in this case a welder! I worked on a farm in high school, mostly throwing hay, feeding animals and doing various odd jobs. That experience taught me alot, and left a much stronger mark on me than my CS education.
- crasshopper 16y ago
  If you want job training, go to welding school. You'd earn much less than a Stanford CS graduate.
bad_user 16y ago
Yes, it's like majoring in CS to work in IT.
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Hm... perhaps you're just not as familiar with advertising/marketing as you think? There are tons of English majors who write ad copy. Case and point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach William Bernbach, founder of DDB, famous copywriter, and... drumroll please English major. Note, this is just a famous example I knew off the top of my head, but if you go look on LinkedIn there are tons of people in the ad industry with English majors. Here's another famous copywriter/English major: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_M._Cone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_M._Cone
- hga 16y ago
  When patio11 mentions literary criticism I take him to mean what goes by the name English major today. We can be pretty sure than what those two did in their majors in the '20s to very early '30s was very different than what many if not most do today. Even if it's literary criticism, for today that's mostly done in a way that's much less broadly focused, right? E.g. who outside of academia and some narrow related circles cares about deconstruction? (Admittedly, some of that is due to cultural changes where literature has lost a tremendous amount of "market share" to modern media starting with movies and radio.)

by jraines 16y ago

Duff 16y ago

Majoring and doing well in English develops good analytical and analysis skills. You learn to read between the lines -- it's not a trivial field of study. Also, going to college is supposed to be about training your mind. Writing an Android app doesn't require a CS degree, but getting a CS degree instills certain habits that enable you to succeed in programming. If you want job training, go to welding school.

jacques_chester 16y ago
You can develop your analytical and writing skills in law, too, with the difference that there's a clear career path if you want to take it. Here in Australia, law is mostly taught as an undergraduate degree. It has essentially taken over the role of a liberal arts degree.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  I majored in English and I'm working as a paralegal... I don't know if there are cultural differences, but in the US there are plenty of English majors who go to law school, I actually think I know more of them than actual Political Science majors.
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    It's a different system. In Australia law is taken as an undergraduate degree. You leave high school and enrol directly in law. When you finish, if you want to be a lawyer, you either get a Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice or take an associateship.
- sien 16y ago
  That's a big overstatement. Arts is very easy to get in to in Australia. Law is far harder. At most of Australia's top Universities you have to be in the top 0.5% of high school students. Admittedly a large number of Law Grads use Law as an engineering decree for government and other administrative work, but still.
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    I think we're on a tangent here. My point is that law is at least as good as teaching "soft" analytic skills as english literature, with the happy side-effect that it comes with a career path built in if you want it. As for getting into law, there are universities outside the Group of 8 who'll accept lower scores.
noonespecial 16y ago
Humf. I took many semesters of welding and it taught me a great deal about how the human world is bodged together at the very lowest levels. Welding as a major is as hard a science as Mechanical or Electrical engineering. Its two parts mechanical engineering, one part chemistry and one part electrical engineering. Lives almost always depend on your work, there's rigorous certifications and civil engineers treat you with almost religious respect. I'm just sayin'.
- veritgo 16y ago
  I'm really liking this thread. Everytime someone tries to dismiss a major or course as being somehow inferior, another person chimes in with a view point that blows said dismissal out of the water. I'm sure there are CS majors now in the workforce that just crank out their requisite number of lines each day, the work that many like to deify as an analytical blend of art and science becoming a routine drag. And there are welders who take pride in their work and are treated with religious respect by civil engineers. Maybe it's more about the person than the major.
  - hga 16y ago
    CMU is big into big robots (as opposed to e.g. MIT's Randy Brooks' little robots), and in one book or article on their program one of their CS undergraduates who was "perfect" at welding stainless steel was mentioned. "I don't think we're going to let him graduate", one of his professors said in jest.
- Duff 16y ago
  I'm not knocking welders, but if you want to go to school and come out with a specific job, you go to a school that turns you into a specialist, in this case a welder! I worked on a farm in high school, mostly throwing hay, feeding animals and doing various odd jobs. That experience taught me alot, and left a much stronger mark on me than my CS education.
crasshopper 16y ago
If you want job training, go to welding school. You'd earn much less than a Stanford CS graduate.

bad_user 16y ago

Yes, it's like majoring in CS to work in IT.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Hm... perhaps you're just not as familiar with advertising/marketing as you think? There are tons of English majors who write ad copy. Case and point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach William Bernbach, founder of DDB, famous copywriter, and... drumroll please English major. Note, this is just a famous example I knew off the top of my head, but if you go look on LinkedIn there are tons of people in the ad industry with English majors. Here's another famous copywriter/English major: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_M._Cone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_M._Cone

hga 16y ago
When patio11 mentions literary criticism I take him to mean what goes by the name English major today. We can be pretty sure than what those two did in their majors in the '20s to very early '30s was very different than what many if not most do today. Even if it's literary criticism, for today that's mostly done in a way that's much less broadly focused, right? E.g. who outside of academia and some narrow related circles cares about deconstruction? (Admittedly, some of that is due to cultural changes where literature has lost a tremendous amount of "market share" to modern media starting with movies and radio.)