Careers
The Next Step
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.
Limitless Possibilities
Build a Fulfilling Career and Cultivate a Meaningful Life
An English degree trains you to really see the world—to notice nuance, to understand others, and to make sense of the stories that shape us. These habits of attention build lifelong empathy and curiosity, while leading to versatile careers that value strong communication skills.
Throughout their time at CSU, our majors 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?
Learn more
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.
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
- Leadership
- Definitions will vary based on context. Can include situational judgement, informed risk taking, resiliency to challenges, and ability to motivate and encourage participation to work towards a shared purpose and vision.
- Verbal & Written Communication
- Respond to needs of diverse audiences through flexible writing and speaking methods. Develop ideas through written and oral forms of expression.
- Digital Proficiency
- Use technology to communicate, problem-solve, and complete tasks in a responsible manner.
- Career Development
- Access information and opportunities for career exploration; understand and articulate the importance of transferable skills in the job search process.
- Global Context
- Demonstrate an understanding of diverse people, cultures, and systems; understand actions have local and global implications for the future.
- Critical Thinking / Problem Solving
- Identify important problems and questions, then gather, analyze, and evaluate information from diverse sources before forming a strategy, decision, or opinion.
- Personal Accountability
- Demonstrate integrity, honestly, dependability, responsibility; accepts guidance and develops effective work habits.
- Self-Reflection
- Evaluate, understand, and communicate personal skills and abilities, learns from past mistakes through feedback to become more flexible and gain new insights/understandings.
- Inclusive Teamwork
- Join together with individuals and teams from diverse backgrounds to pursue a common goal. Often requires negotiating and managing conflict.
- Creativity
- Challenge existing ideas in creative ways to develop new possibilities. Often requires informed risk taking.
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 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.
Cairn Carr, B.A. ’24
Cairn Carr, who earned a bachelor’s degree in English concentrating in linguistics and helped found CSU’s Korean Club, knew early on in college that she wanted to teach abroad.
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.
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.
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Paul DeMaret
English, B.A. ’88, M.A. ’95Demaret was inspired by the faculty in the CSU English department to pursue teaching, and their influence continues to impact the work he does with students in Fort Collins at Rocky Mountain High School.
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English majors are a diverse group doing interesting work in the world, but something else you might not know – they don’t wait until they graduate to start making an impact.
Meet Ashle’ Tate, Kaitlyn Phillips, Jennifer Stetson-Strange, Avery Jones, and Madison Van Doren.
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Pete Wilson
English and Philosophy, B.A. ’23Senior Peter Wilson prepared for graduate school by spending six months on an internship with Professor Zach Hutchins doing archival research and looking at original sources for Hutchins’ book project about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
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Bud Hunt
B.A. ’01; M.A. ’11The first time Bud Hunt earned a degree from CSU, he was planning a career as an English teacher. The second time he earned a degree, he had been creating smarter classrooms and students for a decade and was on his way to becoming a CIO.
