The image of the wandering, career-stuck English major is slowly fading as such degree holders prove their worth in both statistical and qualitative ways. For one, English majors are less likely to be unemployed (9.8 percent) than economics (10.4) and political science majors (11.1), the Huffington Post reported. For another, employers are slowly showing more respect to liberal arts graduates, who, if not English majors themselves, typically develop the same type of abilities required of the discipline.
The problem with majoring in English is that it's almost always done by those who, naturally, worship literature. Thus, the top of the profession is the novel -- a time-consuming product that's only significantly profitable if it falls just short of requirements or far exceeds them. Even the middle of that range is hard to achieve, leaving a hoard of highly capable workers with standards sometimes beyond their abilities.
Perhaps today's English majors are less interested in writing novels (even if they're more likely to write one than others) and more interested in finding any job that makes use of their developed writing, reading, and analytical skills -- skills important to any profession. Perhaps the recent economic downturn spurred more down-to-earth thinking. Perhaps the rise of the internet and with it the increasing number of chances to put words on a screen made English majors/writers more useful and employable.
Of course, there will always be those harboring notions of writing "the next great American novel." These days, it's just taking writers a little longer. Brooklyn Magazine was the latest to point out the country's lack of young novelists. In particular, they mentioned Brooklyn's Jonathan Safran Foer, 37, (a philosophy major at Princeton who most famously wrote "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close") and his rumored move.
