Job Discussion Forums

[chriswalkengod]

Hello. Im 18 year old in USA. Starting college in Spring 2005.

Like most young people, completely clueless about what it is that I want to do. Right now I am thinking of becoming a teacher, mainly to teach english abroad. It seems to me that teaching english abroad is moving into the direction of a required B.A. I am not sure what it is exactly that I should major in? English or one of those education degrees?

Thanks...

[shmooj]

If I were you and thinking back on my own life, I'd major in something that really interests you right now. It really doesn't matter what it is. Don't bank on your goal being English teaching when you leave college. It might be... but then again, if you are like any of us, it might well not be.

[chriswalkengod]

well if im going to do the english teaching -- just assuming -- is it considered better to have a Bach. of the Arts in English or a different major?

Thanks...

[once again]

smjooj has a point..don't bank on anything...but then the same could be said of doing an MA. In the two years it takes, would one have changed one's mind? I guess the best bet is to hedge. Work out which will give you the greater opportunity or be more relevant later. If that should be EFL/ESL, at the moment the Bed seems to be winning out. But that may change in the future. Education, however, may always prefer an education degree, although equivalents studied after the fact may be just as good if not preferred.

This is the edit part......The above makes so little sense I will leave it as an example of how "to write but not make sense"...actually I was trying to suggest that doing a degree and then a teaching certificate may be a good idea, but it may always be preferable to have a Bed for education. If you wish to teach English, at least in HK right now, a degree in Enlgish is prefered. But this is only policy now.

I shall leave this as an example of "how not to post after a couple beyond the number of beers where you could have made a reasonable stab of a response"

[Gordon]

Most of us do not have English degrees. Most jobs that require BAs don't care too much what major it is. Mine was in history because I thought I wanted to teach history. I haven't taught history very much, but I've never regretted studying history.

[once again]

Gordon..your post was not there when I started my post..that is either just a weird coincidence..or a sign of something that will pull our posts together in the future

[denise]

My degree is in Peace & Conflict Studies--completely unrelated, yet it didn't matter one iota when I was looking for jobs the first time around, as I also had a TEFL certificate.

Maybe someone can enlighten me here--I really don't see the connection between being an English major (which implies reading loads, analyzing literature, and writing papers, no?) and teaching the nuts & bolts of the language to non-native speakers. I truly honestly seriously mean no disrespect to English majors; I'm just very curious.

d

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

The subject matter of English Lit as a major normally doesn't have anything to do with teaching ESL, but sometimes English majors are required to take courses in grammar, so that makes it related. Also, English Lit students generally get slammed really hard for any grammatical errors in their papers, and so may have a tendency to make less errors than students from other majors (at least when they first graduate university).

Linguistics is more directly applicable to teachig ESL, but for whatever reason employers don't specifically ask for it as much as English (some employers in Asia may not even know you can major in it).

[struelle]

[chi-chi-]

Any major is good but personally I would avoid the English Lit...I thought about getting my Master's in it but then I remembered this poor chap I knew who got his Bachelor's in it, and he used to ring up my coffee at the gas station.
Don't go with English. I would go with Education.

[Jetgirly]

What college are you going to?

At the university I attend, in Canada, you generally progress through the early stages of a Bachelors Degree before being accepted into the education program. From my school's website:

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (direct quote):

During the first two years of the program you will have the opportunity to take a variety of approved academic courses selected from those offered by the Faculties of Fine Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences. The professional component of the program extends through years three, four and five and has been crafted so as to offer a coordinated, sequenced balance of course work and integrated school observational and practica experiences. In addition to weekly school visits, there are three practica: three weeks in Year Three; five weeks in Year Four; eight weeks in Year Five.

SECONDARY EDUCATION (paraphrased by me):

Typically, you get a degree in whatever field you want to teach in (however it must fall into one of the pre-approved categories). While getting your first degree, you must incorporate certain classes from the Education department into your timetable (they usually become your electives as they don't tend to relate to any other degree programs). Then, you spend 10-12 months getting your "Teaching Certification" (which allows you to teach in my province), and you add on another year of studies if you want to upgrade that Certification to a B.Ed.

This all comes from the University of Victoria, in BC Canada. I'm not sure what the competition for spaces is like, but I think that it's always best to look at your initial degree as as potential end in itself, and not just a means to an end (as the Faculty of Law at U of Toronto says). I know that at the University of Calgary, competition was SERIOUSLY cut-throat to get into the Faculty of Education... we're talking 90%+ averages.

I recommend either getting a degree in something you know that you love OR checking with with Faculty of Education at your college and seeing what degree programs can lead to a spot in the Education program then choosing the one that appeals to you the most OR spending some time working and living on your own before deciding what you want to do. I HIGHLY do not recommend taking an English degree if there is something you are more passionate about that could potentially get you to the same place.

I personally went straight from high school to the BA English program, simply because I was good at English in high school... and after one week I hated it. I remember crying to my parents at the kitchen table on the first week of school because I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do... but I had no idea what I DID want to do. I thought switching schools would help... it didn't. So I'm finishing the degree in three years instead of four, and regretting it every day.

[zaneth]

I sometimes wish I knew more about teaching writing. And I have some fantasies about teaching poetry at some point, which I suppose an English degree would have helped in.

But overall I think that any degree taken where the language of instruction is English will give you more than enough background for most learners out there. Other things about teaching you'll have to learn, of course, but if you're the kind of person who would consider an English degree (and get accepted for one) you probably already have what you need English-wise.

Get something in what you enjoy. Get something to balance English teaching. Business or science or history or something. Think about what you might want to do after you're tired of teaching English and think you might like to try having a decent income for a change. Something with a well-defined and understandable name is good. I know this sounds shallow, but the number of people who will ask you what you majored in is very very much larger than the number of people who will look through your transcript.

Computers can be very handy, as many students of English are programmers or otherwise connected with IT, and there's a whole language to it.

Political Science, Law, I could see benefits to any of these things.

[Jetgirly]

In Canada, you need an undergraduate degree to go into Law... I would have thought the US was similar...

Something like Economics or Commerce/Business is a nice balance to an English degree... or you could consider getting a degree in Communications instead of English (more practical)... or Linguistics... my university recommends considering double-majors in English and a second language (French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian all come to mind... I'm not sure if we teach any Mandarin or Cantonese at my school). Also, you can add Professional/Technical Writing to your English degree.

I personally did an English degree AND the Business Option, however the only students who get credit for the Business Option are in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Thus it does not appear on my transcript, but I did successfully complete all the classes (Introduction to Business, Financial and Management Accounting for Specialists, Management Finance, Introduction to Marketing, Introduction to Organizational Behavior and Business Law for Strategic Decision Makers was the way I structured my program).

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[Sheep-Goats]

I find it interesting that most of the posters here have forgotten to note that they took a TEFL course at some point in their careers. A TEFL course is (usually) a month long full time post-bachelor's course that's specifically for learning how to teach English better. It carries more weight in some countries than others.

An Education degree is most useful if you want to teach children. If you don't care to teach children (as many of us don't) then an education degree is much less useful to you than you'd expect it to be. An English degree doesn't help much with teaching English, but it may well make you the only memeber of the staff who knows how to do any kind of academic research, along with the only one who still reads books that aren't printed on the publishing equivalent of toilet paper.

But this is beside the point. The point is: COLLEGE IS NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE REGUARDED AS AN EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM. At college you take what interests you the most for as long as you can, then take a few requirements so that someone will grant you a degree. If you don't know what interests you, that's what that big list of classes your college will give you is for. Look through it, and sign up for four different classes in four totally different subjects. Most of these will fill some requirement at some point anyway, and by doing this you're much less likely to waste your time when you later change your major -- which MOST kids who go to college do at some point.

Let me give you a negative example. Say you want to study physics, or writing. Your physics professor tells you that you should get started on your math and physics right away, your writing professor just shrugs when you ask him for advice. So you sign up for Mulitvariable Calc (Sophomore level) and Physics 300 (Major-intended sophomore level at most schools in the states). Halfway through the year you realize first of all that you dont' like physics that much, and that those courses are too much work given your current level of understanding. So you withdraw from them before getting a D or F in either, and there you stand, having wasted half of your first year of college. And your dad won't be too happy about that either.

If you had diversified and taken Pottery, Intro to Poetry, Philosophy 100, and Physics 200 you would have probably been able to preserve most of those credits along with your interest and your dad's understanding.

You can always get more vocational training later -- your first four years of college, however, are the only opportunity you'll have to study as I described above.