For people who've gone to university/college for english! - Comments

Jinxeh: Well, like I said- Australia. Our systems of tertiary assessment were unfortunately homogenized yonks ago. I have no idea whether or not this is the case in Canada.

My university holds a Careers in English forum where people who have an English degree come to speak to English majors about what types of things they could go in to with an English degree.

With something so broad as English, you can virtually do anything that requires the use of language. The forum's had TV Reporters, Journalists, Lawyers, Judges, Principals, Teachers, Writers- tons of things.

Sometimes you'll have to take extra classes in order to do such things, but that's what happens when you have a broad degree.

Aelf, that depends on the college, to be fair. I used to pile on the creative writing classes, and while there were essays, it was mostly actual creative writing. It was more in the other classes, the actual English ones that didn't put an emphasis on fiction and the like, that the essays really came about. Most likely, this is because I managed to work with my requirements and take far more creative writing classes in place of the English ones, though, and you can't always do that. (I was just crafty about it.)

career wise: analyze works of literature and film originally written in English, and anything involving writing, editing, publishing, teaching and research, advertising, public relations, law, and finance.
that's about as much as I can tell you. and I only know of these because I've got a friend with an English major

Even if you do a creative writing course, 90% of your assessment as an English major will probably still be writing essays.

I never did creative writing, but I did do English as a major, and while it was fun in theory, it turned out to be pretty pointless overall. If you want your degree to lead to a career, your best bet would be to pair it with a practical subject like teaching or sociology. Them's the brakes in Australia, at any rate.

That said, you're also only 16- there's no rush to decide.

Hey, why not, just for the hell of it, what other things could I go to university that involves english for?

*Gasp* Ending a sentence with a preposition? Not capitalizing the word English? For shame!

You could do a lot of things with an degree in English. You could become a teacher, a editor, or a writer. You could go into publishing or journalism. You could be a copywriter, paralegal, critic, librarian... Lots of choices.

Your counselor will be able to help you out more with these questions, to be quite honest, since she'll know your college's classes and degree requirements, whereas we don't.

And really...it depends on what you want to be. Do you want to be a teacher? Author? Journalist? It'd help if you had at least an idea of what you want to pursue as a career, first. (Or, if you're just not sure, take some classes in the meantime, until you figure it out. Couldn't hurt.)