The Next Step
Cultivate a Meaningful Life and Build a Fulfilling Career
Limitless Possibilities
A degree in English prepares you for incredible career versatility. How? Within our coursework and the department's experiential learning opportunities, students develop key liberal arts skills that translate to a variety of industries, including jobs in healthcare, education, publishing, media, law, marketing & PR, policy, environmental justice, hospitality, and more.
Skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, verbal and written communication,
digital proficiency and literacy, inclusive teamwork, and personal accountability are imparted across our classrooms and concentrations.
By building upon these skills, our students become engaging communicators, convincing writers, empathetic collaborators, ethical decision-makers, and compassionate global citizens—all traits top employers continue to prioritize.
What can I do with my major?
Excited about what you’re learning in class but want to know what jobs and career paths you can pursue with your English degree? Learn more about what you can do with a liberal arts education at the link below.
Get Career Ready
From the moment you arrive at CSU until you graduate, you have access to a community of professionals who can help you navigate career possibilities and carve out a direction for future work or further education.
College of Liberal Arts Career Resources
Schedule a 1-on-1 virtual appointment with the CLA Career Education Manager
Kelsey Schultz
Career Education Manager, College of Liberal Arts
kelsey.schultz@colostate.edu
Kelsey is proud and excited to be a part of the College of Liberal Arts and Career Center Family after living in 5 other states. She brings seven years of experience in higher education and storytelling, focusing on empowering liberal arts students. Through faculty collaboration and student engagement, she’s excited to create and implement a strategic plan to build CSU students’ career confidence with an equity and inclusion focus so they can change the world.
Build your resume
Use these editable Google doc resumes and PDF samples tailored for industries such as Publishing & Writing, Teaching, Marketing, and Law & Public Policy.
Jobs board
Check out this list of industry-specific job and internship boards just for Liberal Arts students, covering opportunities in art, communications, entertainment, government, non-profits, writing, and more!
Building Skills & Fostering Career Competencies
Competencies are the skills and knowledge that employers are looking for in CSU Rams. These skills translate to a wide variety of jobs and demonstrate your career readiness post-graduation.
Career Competencies
Lucy Lawrence, B.A. '21
Being an English major has been one of the biggest assets for me when applying to medical school. These days, medical schools are looking for candidates who communicate clearly, work well in a team environment, and are willing to go into kind of dark caves with people. And that is, I think, what a major in English at CSU has given me. I am so excited to begin my medical career at Wake Forest School of Medicine and serve people not only as a physician but also as a poet.
Career Q&As with our alumni
In this new series, we've connected with recent alumni to provide insight into their professional lives and share stories about their jobs. Learn more about how a degree in English has helped advance their careers, below.
Jenna Schuster, B.A. '18
Soon-to-be novelist Jenna Schuster (’18) has gone from the Greyrock Review to the Motley Fool. She’s a content strategist for the financial and investing company and recently completed a graduate degree in fine arts in creative writing.
Schuster outlines the ways in which her undergraduate experience prepared her for success in both a Content Strategist position and her terminal graduate degree in Fine Arts in Creative Writing, here.
Andrea Day, B.A. '21
As an employee of Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins, Andrea Day ('21) considers their job a balancing act. While they started out as a part-time bookseller, Day has since grown to take on a new position as the events and social media coordinator. In this role, they use their degree to support the store by managing author events, coordinating communication across social media platforms, expanding their design skills, and more.
Read about Day's emerging literary career, here.
Meg Prekeryte, B.A. '23
Making an impact in her community: Meg Prekeryte ('23) shares how a degree in English led to her current role as a grant writer for a nonprofit in the healthcare industry.
Learn about Prekeryte's non-traditional career path and how she applies writing and analytical skills from her English degree to the professional space, here.
Interested in pursuing an advanced degree? The Career Center is here to help you decide if graduate school is the right next step for you.
English majors find success in a variety of careers, including:
- Agency/Arts Administrator
- Book Publicist
- Copyeditor/Copywriter
- English Teacher/Teacher of English as a Second Language
- Grant Writer/Technical Writer
- Human Resources Manager
- Communications/Events Coordinator
- Digital Marketing/Social Media Manager
- Publicity/Promotion Specialist
- Magazine, Newspaper, Television, Education, or Government Writer
- Writer of Prose, Fiction, or Nonfiction
- Attorney/Paralegal
- Medical Professional
- Web Content Designer
- Curriculum Developer
- Literary Agent
Similarly, graduate programs in medicine, law, and other fields also seek out undergraduates who majored in English. Undergraduates majoring in English are well positioned to take advantage of the CSU Effect.
Meaningful Life, Meaningful Work Stories
Find career inspiration by reading stories in our alumni magazine of English grads and current students who are making a difference in their communities and around the world.
