The English Major: One Hot Topic

Within today’s modern society, Creative Writing is becoming a more valued tool for small business when looking for potential, future employees.  Corporations and other types of businesses will look to an English Major or one who has a Cultural Studies for knowledge not only in language and writing, but also proficiencies with social media networking. 
The following essay will discuss, not only the job market leaning towards professionals with the capable means to provide such services, but also explain why small businesses and other areas are looking towards English Majors to provide services in language, communication and media in order to expand their businesses for growth.  This will be shown through various articles provided and researched.

Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

When I informed my family of my intention to return to school the reaction I received was varied and mixed with doubt, curiosity and a lot of puckered brows.  Truly I have always been a person who seeks to make those around me happy; therefore, when I was advised that an English and Creative Writing degree was impractical in today’s Job Market, I originally elected to heed my family’s advice. 

My mother-in-law, a much wiser woman than I, assumed I would be much better off gaining a degree within Library Science, as that had a reputation with solid professional earning prospects than one as a writer hoping to get published.   It was only after I began to do some research of my own did I begin to discover that perhaps my mother-in-law’s information was simply based upon a personal experience having developed and grown in a different environment age where being a writer, a journalist and a woman during a period of time when equal liberties for both genders was only just coming to the forefront of society. 

In today’s modern society and job market we existent in a diverse realm than the one found thriving within the 1960’s.  Within the 60’s the ideals of freedom of speech, gender equality and sexual identity were changing how the world viewed communication.  Mass media was finding outlets via magazines, television, radio and music in order to express its varied transformative messages as it reached an on the rise international audience; especially with the broadcast of the Kennedy vs Nixon Presidential debate on Sept. 26^th, 1960 from the CBS Studios in Chicago, IL.

These would be the first examples of how English majors would come to find attention beyond modest, professional prospects in education.  The English major of the 60’s helped to alter how the world viewed Vietnam, opened our senses to new forms of literature, brought about new genres of television shows, and opened our senses and minds to the concept of music holding a message of change.  

In our modern world these changes would expand even further with the onset of the Internet.  In today’s society consumers and businesses alike are finding it to be fruitful to make use of social media applications as a practice of communicating with the world.  In a world where the common thought often is found to align with “one must have a degree in one of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs in order to prosper in today’s society if one wishes to succeed,” how would an English and Liberal Arts Major equate to such standards? 

Interestingly enough, more businesses, both small and larger corporations, are finding themselves considering potential employee prospects that happen to have an English background as someone with viable skills. Logitech CEO, Bracken Darrell, himself, graduated with an English degree from a college in Arkansas.  He views liberal arts and the skills acquired from those who graduate with such degrees as “soft skills.”

What exactly are these “soft skills?”  According to an article published on the Open Forum website by Bruna Martinuzzi these skills consisted of the following:

1.      Communication - In a recent Job Outlook Survey, employers rated the "ability to verbally communicate with persons inside and outside the organization” as the most important candidate skill. Communication is at the heart of any business. Everything that happens in an organization requires communication.

2.      Writing - A Metlife survey found that 97 percent of business executives rate writing skills as very important. English majors—perhaps more than any other major—are trained to write well. A major part of what business owners do to gain clients has to do with writing, whether it's writing an advertisement or a marketing brochure, a good sales letter or an email sales campaign. Businesses also need people who can create powerful content for the company blog, develop a strong social media presence and craft a compelling description of products and services for the company website.

3.      Research - All business owners need to stay current on changes and developments in their field. They also need to have absolute accuracy in any communications with clients. Having someone on staff who excels in conducting research is a very viable asset. English majors are drilled in conducting in-depth research.

4.      Critical Thinking - The ability to analyze an issue and question assumptions applies to all kinds of information in a business setting. English majors are taught to deconstruct and analyze a problem, and package their conclusion so others can understand their line of thought.

5.      Empathy - Businesses are recognizing the importance of empathy in the workplace. In The 'Soft Skill' that pays $100,000+, author George Anders discovered over 1,000 listings for highly paid jobs where employers list empathy as a necessary qualification. And these were not just jobs in traditionally compassionate sectors, such as health care and nonprofits; they included companies in technology, finance, consulting and aerospace, to name a few. Think Microsoft, Dell, Raytheon, Symantec, Pfizer and McKinsey.  (Open Forum, Bruna Martinuzzi 2013)

In his own words he expresses how valuable he finds being able to communicate with not only his employees, but also with the consumer and technology world.  He attributes these skills to his background as an English major in college.  "The older I get, the more I realize the power of words and the power of words in making you think ... the best CEOs and leaders are extremely good writers and have this ability to articulate and verbalize what they're thinking," he says.” The market for liberal arts and English has declined so rapidly through the years as the STEM programs have boomed through the last decade, that he views the concept of liberal arts major as “an endangered species.  If you find one, you need to run over and catch them in a conversation." – (Business Insider, 2013)

English degrees, and those who have graduated with such, offer a unique set of skills not to be found in the other areas, such as STEM.  Within an English program, a student and potential employee within the job market, learns how to critically analysis situations through various readings, and has the ability to communicate through the art of storytelling and word development in a way that draws its target audience to desire more. 

Whether that “more” happens to be technological or consumer base, the English major understands how to adapt and manipulate the language arts, bringing to the table a depth of knowledge and objectivity not provided by another.  As Santosh Jayaram, former executive for both Twitter and Google, explained in an interview with The Wall Street Journal "Almost anything you can imagine you can now build, so the battleground in business has shifted from engineering, which everybody can do, to storytelling, for which many fewer people have real talent." (Business Insider, 2014)

Steve Strauss stated in his article “Why I Hire English Majors” in the June, 2013 edition of the Small Business section of the Huffington Post why he would prefer to hire English majors over others… “For my money (literally and figuratively), for my needs, and I suggest the needs of most small businesses, English majors are easily the top choice when it comes to getting the type of teammate who can make us all better, as they say in basketball.” As he explains in the most basic of terms English majors have not only the communication skills, (both verbal and written) but they have the ability to understand how to think both critically outside the box and to be able to see the world in a more abstract environment than the average soul. 

He explains this ability to critically analyze their world and the boldness needed to think outside the box with this statement: “I think what I appreciate most about English majors is that they are taught to think critically, and that is exactly what I want in my business. Busy with a start-up, a new book to finish, speeches, and running my regular business to boot, what I need is to be able to give someone an assignment and have them do it. Period.

That is exactly what I get from the English majors. They know how to think, to think for themselves, and how to analyze a problem. Business majors are fine, but they are preoccupied with theory, proving themselves, and doing it "right." But the English majors are used to getting a tough assignment, figuring it out, and getting it done, (usually) on time.

Not only do these folks have to be bold simply to make such a choice of majors at a time when everyone is advising them to think about making themselves as practical as possible in this shrinking, global job market, but the nature of their gig is that they have to be bold. Reading Chaucer, making sense of it, writing a term paper on it, and then being able to defend it, takes far more bravery than, say, analyzing the fall of the Soviet Union.”

In a world where everyone and anyone can create a blog, or a social media page it is almost mandatory for a business to have on their staff someone who has the knowledge and ability to think beyond market strategies and market value.  Companies both small and large need to be able to set standards by being brave enough to be reachable to the common consumer with language that is both friendly and understandable.  This is where the English major thrives. 

No longer are the jobs simply contained to ones where the English and literature major can expect to go into teaching or perhaps journalism.  Now they can seek further reaches beyond average boundaries.  Where will the next 5, 10, or even fifteen years bring for those who branch out and are bold enough to seek a degree in English and Writing?  One can only look to the future and write our own path… For if those in the 60’s had not been bold enough to step forward and speak for civil liberties and gender equalities where would we be today? 

A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. ~John K. Hutchens, New York Herald Tribune, 1961 September 10th

References:

1.      "This Week in Small Business: Hire an English Major." You're the Boss: The Art of Running a Small Business. The New York Times, 15 July 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

2.      Grasgreen, Allie. "Liberal Arts Grads Win Long Term." Inside Higher Ed. Inside Higher Ed, 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

3.      Bruni, Frank. "College’s Priceless Value - Higher Education, Liberal Arts and Shakespeare." The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

4.      Strauss, Steve. "Why I Hire English Majors." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

5.      Giang, Vivian. "LOGITECH CEO: 'I Love Hiring English Majors'" Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 20 June 2013. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.

6.      Asay, Matt. "Why Every Tech Company Needs An English Major." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 26 Feb. 2014. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.

7.      "Why English Majors Are the Hot New Hires." OPEN Forum. 11 July 2013. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.