Theres a myth out there that a degree in the humanities is a ticket to post-graduation employment behind a fast-food counter. As shown in a Tufts Daily article published last week, weve begun cultivating another myth that humanities and English majors in particular are only eligible to become journalists, teachers or publishers. The idea that English majors might understand something like (*gasp*) business has, apparently, become ludicrous.
Let me dispel both of those myths for you. Im a Tufts senior, an English major and I have a post-graduation job lined up in marketing. To the best of my knowledge, this apparent blasphemy has not yet caused the sky to rain blood, or the earth to tear itself asunder.
How did I, the poor, poor misguided humanities major (its okay Mom and Dad, Ill get lots of critical thinking skills) finagle something as unimaginable as dare I say it employment.
I worked really, really hard.
Typically, when you work really, really hard on something, be that something your chemical engineering problem set or an application of Freudian theory to the films of Hitchcock, good things come of it.
The majority of business (a term Ill use loosely to define anything like marketing, sales, finance, human resources, etc.) jobs out there dont care what your degree says. The only thing, and I mean quite literally the only thing, the people that may one day hire you care about, are these magical little things called skills.
Skills are not I learned this really cool thing in x class today, or, My senior thesis is kind of related to x job task. Skills are quantifiable (burn that word into your brain) achievements you made in a role similar to the job youre applying for. They look kind of like this:
Wrote, promoted and archived more than 500 blog posts.
Successfully filled 10 vacancies in a two-month period.
Achieved 120 percent of sales goal with 20 percent year-over-year growth.
But these dont sound like things I learn in my classes, you might say. In fact, youre 100 percent correct! Most of your classes wont result in bullets like the above for your resume. You take classes so that you can get the soft skills (critical thinking, analytical aptitude, superb writing, etc.) you need to build hard skills like the above. Where do you make those hard skills? Internships.
If youve been quickly scanning through this piece, stop now and read this paragraph in full. The number of internships you do in college will get you hired. Do one every summer. Every semester, if you can manage it. Theyre the real-world applications for all of the wonderful, beautifully abstract and impractical concepts Tufts teaches you. If you can walk out of this school with a resume that doesnt include your summer job scooping ice cream or your extracurricular activities, employment wont be that difficult for you to find.
As for choosing (or standing by) your major? Study what you love! Do you seriously want to spend four years bored out of your mind in classes you couldnt care less about, just because you think itll end up in a job? Thats not a wise way to spend $60,000+ of your parents money, and youre probably just going to end up impassionate and jaded by the end of it. Look at your life, look at your choices.
If what you love happens to be a humanity or an art, and you have the audacity to expect to be A) employed and B) employed in a field thats not journalism or publishing, fear not, friend; you are actually not audacious at all! You can have any job that you want, provided you put in the work to get it.
Bear in mind that you are not somebody like our friends in engineering, whose coursework often results in real-world skills. Youll have to build your own skills through other outlets like internships, but I promise you, you wont even think twice about that if you love what youre doing!
Major in what you want to, and dont let anybody tell you differently. Were all going to be up to our ears in debt anyway, so make sure you at least enjoyed the reason why you got into it in the first place anyway.
Michael Restiano is a senior who is majoring in English. He can be reached at Michael.Restiano@tufts.edu.
