There are a large number of reasons to study for English degrees at UK institutions, and chief among them is the benefit of obtaining a non-vocational degree that opens up a myriad of career possibilities. Most English degrees will assist students in acquiring desirable, relevant and useful skills for any future employment.
Among these skills are those of analytical thinking, problem-solving, close evaluation of the written and spoken word, presentation expertise, articulacy, and highly developed communication proficiency. Employers value graduates who can demonstrate these specialities, and a degree in English is a virtual guarantee of advanced training in all or most of these intellectual areas.
Students who complete an English degree are able to compete at the highest level with other graduates for employment in professions as diverse as law, accountancy, teaching, research, journalism, publishing, and marketing, to name but a few. Recent graduates in English, for example, have taken up positions as editors for international publishing houses, such as Penguin and Oxford University Press; or as copy-editors for international magazine publishers. The BBC and other, independent television production companies often hire graduates who have completed degrees in core arts disciplines. Legal careers are open to graduates from English, once a conversion course has been completed; and accountancy firms value the key skills acquired through reading for English degrees in Literature and English Literature and Language. Graduates can also teach English within the British schools' system once a postgraduate certificate has been obtained, but English graduates can also teach abroad-in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, for example-literally expanding their horizons thanks to their degree.
"Students who complete a degree in English are able to compete at the highest level with other graduates for employment in professions as diverse as law, accountancy, teaching, research, journalism, publishing, and marketing, to name but a few."
The kinds of English degree courses offered by UK institutions vary widely. Many of the traditional universities provide courses with a significant degree of chronological coverage, taking the student (who can often choose modules within a broad range) from the earliest literary periods of Old and Middle English to the most contemporary writing in English from all over the world. Often included in these courses are modules in English language: the history of the language, sociolinguistics (the ways in which language and society interact), pragmatics, semiotics, stylistics, and so on. The expertise of the respective Department's faculty will often dictate the more specialised modules that are on offer. The same is true, of course, of all university and college departments, and the larger the department, the more varied the particular modules on offer can often be.
Newer universities usually offer a more limited chronological range of literature, beginning with Shakespeare in many cases, and providing students with a large range of modules in the early modern and modern periods from which selections can be made. On all English degree programmes, students usually study literary periods (such as 'The Long Nineteenth-Century', 'Renaissance Literature', 'Contemporary Writing') together with courses on particular themes (for example, 'Women's Writing in the Modernist Period', 'The City in Literature', 'Pastoral Poetry') or authors (such as Chaucer, Dickens, Woolf, Beckett). The amount of choice for students very much depends on the institution: some offer a substantial number of optional modules with just a handful of core courses; others have less choice, the programme revolving around mandatory modules studied by all students, with a selection of options at advanced levels. Each system of teaching has its own benefits: programmes with a great deal of flexibility obviously allow students to specialise from early in the degree, and focus on those things that students believe are of greatest interest; programmes with a significant number of core modules provide students with a thorough background in major literary areas, and introduce students to exciting new areas of study that they may not have voluntary selected.
Many courses provide students with carefully packaged 'pathways' through the English degree programme. For example, some departments' curricula will permit students to specialise in English Language, while taking a variety of literary courses; others allow specialisation in Medieval Literature, Theoretical Approaches to Literature, Drama, and so on. Numerous institutions offer programmes that result in joint degrees, such as English and Philosophy, English and History, English and Comparative Literature. Others have major components in fields as diverse as Creative Writing, or Literature in Translation, or Cultural History.
Whichever course in English and related areas you choose, you are guaranteed a wonderfully rich education that will help you acquire numerous skills to set you up for a multitude of careers.
