What do I do with my English major?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
Thanks for the warnings about technical writing, Lori.

Well, I would imagine that the pay might not be **** if I did have a degree of some sort. I'm merely pointing out that tech writer jobs are not hard to get so long as you can demonstrate the requisite skills.

[:) Smiley]

Start a religion.

[Darius871]

Re: Re: Re: What do I do with my English major?

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
If you have a high tolerance for pain, yes.

[Pekka]

You can always be a bum, but like a high class bum. You know, use all the words the other bums don't use. You could be the king of bums.

Also, the porn industry is always looking for people, so that's one thing you could do.. hey, you could be the Hamlet of porn.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Elok
Eh, the same held true for my one 400-level course, but it's not worth arguing over, really. I'm just saying that your average philosopher is very bad at communicating what s/he thinks, whether that material has other merits or not. If it eases the sting, I have far more contempt for a lot of the literary criticism I've encountered. That stuff was poorly expressed for a good reason, namely that it was manifest nonsense from start to end. Aristotle was actually saying something, he just said it quite awkwardly so that it takes hours of reading to figure out what it is he was saying.

Oh, and I was thinking mostly of Parmenides of Elea, the most egregious offender I've encountered. It's exasperating to think that the equivocating man-whore wouldn't be inflicted on unsuspecting college students if only ancient Greek had different verbs for different senses of "to be," like Spanish. But IIRC someone more modern--Moore, I think it was--argued for his position on ethics with a shoddy argument worthy of a PoMo journal, just more elegantly costumed. I suppose there are crackpots in every discipline, but I've encountered a lot of them in Philosophy.

Thanks for the warnings about technical writing, Lori. And I don't have the stamina or money for law school. Or the drugs I'd need to abuse in order to live with myself while doing that for a living.

PoMo sucks sweaty donkey balls.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Oh please, here's an unfair criticism if there's one. Parmenides wrote in a time were prose didn't even exist as a genre. His texts were intelligible to his contemporaries.

?? I was using Parmenides as an example of bad philosophy, not bad writing. You did ask for a concrete example of reasoning that digs into simple concepts until it loses its bearings and spouts gibberish. "On Nature" might well have been an attractive poem, but by confounding "to be" in the sense of existence with "to be" in the sense of current state, he created a problem which doesn't exist. Among other things.

Odin, I concur. NoMoPoMo for me, either.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Smiley
Start a religion.

No, I'm doing that too; it also pays ****.

[Provost Harrison]

[asleepathewheel]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What do I do with my English major?

Originally posted by Darius871

why the confusion? Not physical pain, of course, just severe mental anguish. At least at my law school.

[Stuie]

I have a BA in English. First job after graduating: Retail Management.

So there you go.

[Darius871]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What do I do with my English major?

Originally posted by asleepathewheel

why the confusion? Not physical pain, of course, just severe mental anguish. At least at my law school.

Not confused, just wanted some clarification.

[Barnabas]

Become an english spelling reform wacko and create a geocities page to explain your ideas

[Elok]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Become an english spelling reform wacko and create a geocities page to explain your ideas

Hell no. Trying to keep language from growing as it will is like trying to make water flow uphill. We should leave stupid crap like that to people who have nothing better to do with their time, like the French with their Academie Pompouse or whatever.

I'm looking into technical writing, as "business writing" doesn't seem to be mentioned much. I've been scanning careerbuilder.com; anyone know if that's a good place to look for openings? I'm dividing my time between that and editing my book, since my college gives out a substantial cash prize to the graduating senior who shows the most literary potential. I might be competing with thirty other applicants, but $60K+ and the attention of every major publisher isn't something to blow off...

[Dinner]

An English degree? Unless you're going to be a journalist then you can pretty much write in your spare time but likely won't make enough to do that exclusively. Start a blog where you can voice your opinions and maybe sell a few ads if you get big enough then go to graduate school and study something economically useful which skilled trade like becoming an airline pilot might work.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Elok like the French with their Academie Pompouse or whatever.