The skills you develop as an English major, such as writing, editing, problem solving, critical thinking, and analysis, are highly prized by employers in nearly every profession. In this age of information and technology, the particular skills you've developed while engaged in studying, analyzing, and writing about literature are in more demand in the workplace than ever before. The difficulty is often the sheer range of choices. Unlike a student of nursing or landscape architecture, an undergraduate English major has not been trained for a specific kind of work. This can make the task of career exploration feel overwhelming.
Career planning is a process, and it takes time.
It's a process in which you'll attempt to match your values, needs, ethics, aspirations, talents, and abilities with the needs of an agency, organization, or institution. This page is designed to help you to begin this process and to access the resources available to you at the University of Washington. This partial list of transferable skills developed in the course of the English major is taken from the English Major Skills Workshops , presented by the Department of English and the Center for Career Services. Many occupations require an individual who can write and speak well, solve problems, learn new information quickly, and work well with others on a team. This means that English graduates use their education in a wide variety of fields, and your future career may relate more to your personal career interests, work values and transferable skills than anything specific to the content of your major.