Join Us: Career Planning Workshop for PNW English Majors
Hello to the smart, witty, wacky world of the Purdue University Northwest English Majors, English Grads, English Alums, and their extended community! We are excited to invite you to a career planning workshop just for you.
I hope you’ll come out to hear from Professor Miranda Morley and recent PNW grad Ashley Pezan. Professor Morley is the owner of Morley Career Solutions and works with students, recent grads, and people who are interested in changing careers to figure out their path and how to market themselves. Ashley is a student services professional at Ivy Tech Community College, having launched herself into a career in higher education with her liberal arts degree (and English lit minor).
Look, it’s a tough market for new college grads across the board. But the research shows that graduates with degrees in the liberal arts, including English, will do just as well as those with more vocationally-focused degrees, over the course of their career. Those skills you have — in writing in multiple genres, reading critically, synthesizing complicated ideas and multiple sources, and so on — are marketable. [Check out this site for a great round-up of research and writing about English majors on the job market.]
But English majors do have to embark on a process of research and discovery to figure out how they want to use their skills in the job market. You have to do some soul-searching, some job-shadowing, some research in job ads and current job trends. You should do an internship, or two, or three.
Whether you’ve done all that work yet or not, this workshop will help to support you in your process, by giving you the chance to hear from others who have negotiated the job search successfully. Sometimes, a little peer support, a few externally imposed deadlines, a professor writing to you to see how many jobs you’ve applied for this week — sometimes these things can help. You’re not in this alone: we are here to help.
Speaking of support, we’re also re-starting our support group for job-seeking English alums this summer. If you’re a recent (or not-so recent) PNW alum, and you’re looking for your first professional job or to move into a new career, think about joining us. We meet regularly to talk about how it’s going, debrief abut interviews, share strategies for finding and applying for jobs. More than anything, we meet to keep each other going. Applying for jobs is not fun, but we’ve got your back and we’re there for support or to keep you accountable, whatever you need. Email me at hfieldin at pnw dot edu if you want to join us.
