Job Advice for College Grads?

[DoomsdayApex]

What kind of writing does your friend do, Doomsday?

He applied to be a Ghost Writer at one point but he got a job as a... *drumroll* screenwriter (he clearly has to be bangin' somebody in management).

He started off as a songwriter (it's how we met) but the band fired him shortly after. Coincidently, I was given his job.

 

[Boom]

I keep meaning to finish my sci-fi western script .

 

[DoomsdayApex]

I'm sure it was a slap in the face It's really tough when you see those type of situations. All I can tell you is to hang in there...even though it seems like he's got it made, now, you never know what will happen to him in the future. If his job skills are poor, eventually it's going to bite him in the ass.

It's frustrating. I'm 23 years of age and I'm still in college. I've had to do some insane things for cash while he's 'living it up'.

Thanks, hopefully next year is a better year for me. 2011 has just been complete and utter crap.

 

[Yurka]

Start a blog Boom, even if you can't find a paying position position at least you'll be able to put on your resume you have experience writing reviews and such, and could show examples of your work.

 

[Boom]

Start a blog Boom, even if you can't find a paying position position at least you'll be able to put on your resume you have experience writing reviews and such, and could show examples of your work.

That's the current game plan. Hopefully I can have something up by the end of the month.

 

[Boom]

It's frustrating. I'm 23 years of age and I'm still in college. I've had to do some insane things for cash while he's 'living it up'.

Thanks, hopefully next year is a better year for me. 2011 has just been complete and utter crap.

How do you even get your foot in the door for something like that? I've got like three scripts that I've just been sitting on with absolutely no idea what to do with.

It's funny. I got an English degree with the intention of become a film critic or screenwriter, and I have absolutely no idea where to begin. I didn't think this through .

 

[enterthemadness]

So was Harrison Ford, James Cameron, and Matt Damon. And Jodie Foster and Conan O'Brien. And Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. All English majors.

Those don't count. Being a English Major doesn't get you a gig in Hollywood. Well, okay, Acting wise it won't. Conan doesn't shock me, him and Tina Fey are writers that happen to do other likes outside of writing.

 

[terry78]

The only way you get into the biz is by having contacts. If other people are in your line of work regarding degrees, try and make some connections to get your foot in the door.

 

[Spider-Nerd]

I've been out of college for several years now, and after a handful of miscellaneous jobs, I've decided that perhaps I should look for something that actually utilizes my degree.

I've always wanted to be a film critic, but I imagine that's something I'm going to have to build up to.

So, what's out there for English majors these days?

I have a law degree and the market's **** right now. Good luck with the job hunt!

 

[Kurosawa]

Regardless of what your degree is in, the most important thing is to have a clear career goal and path. You gotta have a plan. No plan and you end up foundering. This I know from experience.

 

[Reek]

Sorry mods, kind of a difficult topic to look up.

Any ideas? I live in GA, very little opportunities. Any possibility I find, prefers more experience...and given the amount of laid off employees vs. college grads in the last year...experience is kicking ass.

thanks for any help.

 

[Watson]

I have an English degree, and now I'm in law school. That pretty much sums it up.

But if you really love the written word, try going for a college program in publishing or journalism. Find one that has killer internships. The program courses don't matter so much, but if you get a good internship it can very easily turn into a job.

EDIT: and if you want to write, you need to start just pumping out some free stories or review. Start a blog and review films on it, or contact one of the smaller film sites and see if they need contributers. My original blog led me in to writing for www.itsjustmovies.com, then I started writing on a volunteer basis for my school's paper, and then I got upgraded to paid reporter. I'm now working on getting some freelance gigs out of that. Point is, if you want to make money doing that you need to build up a portfolio at the very least. And accept that you will need to work somewhere else for a while doing something you don't love and/or hate.

 

[Bruce Banner]

It's frustrating. I'm 23 years of age and I'm still in college. I've had to do some insane things for cash while he's 'living it up'.

Thanks, hopefully next year is a better year for me. 2011 has just been complete and utter crap.

I'm a 23 year old English Major as well. 2011 started off well for me and as of last Friday it turned to total ****.

Being truthful, my dream has always been trying to become a novelist. Lately life seems to have sucked the creativity(and hope) right out of me. Along with the muse turning into a total ***** and messing me up.

I know I am going to need a job to make ends meet. I think about how it would be to be a professor or would I want to attempt something else to bring in the money?

 

[Troy_Parker]

This thread is great. I'm strongly considering English as something I want to study next year at uni.

 

[AndThePickles]

But if you really love the written word, try going for a college program in publishing or journalism. Find one that has killer internships. The program courses don't matter so much, but if you get a good internship it can very easily turn into a job.

I disagree with the journalism suggestion. Not sure how it is in CA, but in the US, journalism is like a small fish with hundreds of sharks attacking it to get a bite. A lot of journalists here have lost their jobs.

 

[Watson]

^But if boom wants to be a film critic, then he is in essence a journalist. To even get a column in a daily, as hard as that is, you have to pay your dues doing bottom feeder stuff at the papers. If that's what you really want of course. And the best way to get it right now is to try and get the best damn internships you can. You won't get paid, but you get absolutely invaluable contacts out of it.

That said, arts criticism has way more of a future online anyways, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there and learn how to effectively pitch a story and yourself.

 

[SuperFerret]

Regardless of what your degree is in, the most important thing is to have a clear career goal and path. You gotta have a plan. No plan and you end up foundering. This I know from experience.

What he said.


I'm also suddenly glad that I decided against becoming an English major.

 

[Anita18]

Have you tried technical writing and editing jobs? Those are what I was looking for fresh out of college, and I didn't have enough experience, but they tend to be needed at a large variety of different companies.

One of my wannabe screenwriter friends was looking into day jobs where she'd write, and apparently there's lots of money to be made in technical and grant writing.

But you'd have to know a lot of technical jargon and all that.

I really want to be a film critic, but I don't even know where to begin. And even if I did, I honestly don't know how to even make it as a critic in this day and age.

I've looked into my local newspapers (large and small), but their Career pages offer me little-to-no help. Not to mention that newspapers are a dying industry (or so I'm told), and that especially doesn't bode well for entertainment sections.

So I guess that leaves websites/blogs, but for the life of me I don't understand how people make money from that. And I don't even know how you go about getting "hired" by a website.

Still, it's a career that just feels right to me. I spend most of my day researching and discussing movies anyway. Might as well try and make some money off of it.

For blogs, you make money from ads or affiliate links. Like, say you link to a product on Amazon and a visitor from your site clicks through that product link and buys something from Amazon - you get a cut.

Making real money from blogs is a long-shot, to be honest. The one-person operations I've read about who made it big started out blogging just for fun, and eventually gained a following after months and even years of consistent posting.

The only way you get into the biz is by having contacts. If other people are in your line of work regarding degrees, try and make some connections to get your foot in the door.

Yup. ESPECIALLY in LA because everyone here and their brothers and sisters (and parents and grandparents...) want to be screenwriters.

Only one of my wannabe screenwriter friends is actually making money screenwriting, but that's because her second cousin was a contact for her. She's a good writer to be fair, but I'm sure no more exceptional than 500 others out there. Once you're in the club you're in, but you have to get your foot in the door.

Oh, and this screenwriter friend is totally not swimming in the big bucks. She lives a little better than I do, but still has to have a roommate to be able to afford her rent.

I have a law degree and the market's **** right now. Good luck with the job hunt!

Yeah another one of my English major friends (one of the smartest people I know) went to law school and passed the bar recently, and the market is truly ****. She finally found a job that's tangentially law-related through her father. DO NOT go to law school - the five-figure debt is not worth it and the jobs are not there. What's truly about the whole thing is that when she got into law school, her mom was literally drooling at her future six-figure salary. Totally not happening in this job market....


As a general note for college grads (not just English majors), your degree will not guarantee you anything anymore. You can't just point to it and say, "I've got ____ degree, that automatically means I'm qualified in ____."

You have to PROVE to people that the skills you've gained from your major are applicable to other fields. As people have mentioned, English majors are very versatile and can find their niche in many industries, but you still have to prove that you have what it takes. You have to put yourself out there.

Like, I have a biology major but I'm moving into graphic design. What does one have to do with the other? Well, I'm obviously capable of research and thinking big picture, and I'm also ridiculously detail-oriented. That's what the two have in common, and that's what I'll differentiate myself with once I get out into the design job market.

I guess my classmates aren't very good examples of English majors branching out, and I graduated from a top liberal arts school. Of the English majors I know off the top of my head, one went to law school, one's a screenwriter, one went to med school, and one became a co-founder of a locksmith company.

 

[Watson]

Law school can be worth it if a) it's actually what you're really passionate about it b) you have the grades to get into a tier 1 or tier 2 school in the states c) you can get the marks and experience you need to get a job. The problem is (and I fully admit that this was part of the reason I went to law school in the first place) is that a lot of people go to law school because they think it's an easy career path. It isn't at all. In fact it can actually make things more confusing.

 

[Anita18]

Law school can be worth it if a) it's actually what you're really passionate about it b) you have the grades to get into a tier 1 or tier 2 school in the states c) you can get the marks and experience you need to get a job. The problem is (and I fully admit that this was part of the reason I went to law school in the first place) is that a lot of people go to law school because they think it's an easy career path. It isn't at all. In fact it can actually make things more confusing.

Yeah one of the things my friend regrets about going to law school is that she didn't wait longer to apply - they like older, more experienced applicants and she already graduated college a year early! So she didn't get into a top 10 school, although the school she went to is still tier 1. Her mom wanted her to go right away though and not to wait around for her future six-figure salary.

But even going into a tier 1 school, the jobs are not there, especially when the large firms (where people get the six-figures) are laying off equally intelligent, and infinitely more experienced lawyers en masse. If there are jobs to be had, you bet the more experienced lawyers just laid off will snap those up before the greenhorns just out of school.

And yeah, I've heard the adage that law school is like a pie-eating contest where the grand prize is more pie. I have an acquaintance who's a bigshot corporate lawyer, and she makes a TON of money but has no choice but to work 100-hr weeks to sustain her reputation. Single, no children, in her 40's, been working like this her entire career. She has no time to enjoy her money except by leasing expensive cars.

That's the thing about making big money - a lot of times you actually do have to put in the work to justify it! Maybe except on Wall St, but you might have to be plied with the money to justify working with such *****ebags. And there's easy money to be had if you know how to program for mobile and are willing to move to San Francisco or NYC. My bf only has a bachelor's not even in the field (although it is in engineering) and he's already making close to what my boss is making as an associate professor running a NIH-funded lab who'd been doing lab work since he was 17.

 

[Watson]

It's not even big law that demands a lot of hours of worked. I spent my last two summers at legal aid clinics. I was averaging 60 hour weeks easy, and was carrying between 25-50 files at different points over the 4 months. That said, I enjoy that type of work. But you have to be willing to make the commitment.

The irony is, non-profits and legal aid/government jobs are a field where they are still hiring young lawyers-but a lot of young lawyers can't afford to work those jobs because of their debt load. But they can't get big law either now. It's just a crappy situation anyway you look at it. I'm very lucky that the Canadian legal job market hasn't been hit as hard as the American one.

 

[Raiden]

Regardless of what your degree is in, the most important thing is to have a clear career goal and path. You gotta have a plan. No plan and you end up foundering. This I know from experience.

Yeah, I was like that after I graduated, and it took me quite a long time before I finally settle in a career. However, I'm sure there's alot of people who have gotten a certain degree, with plans and all that, but the poor job market just derailed his plan completely. Sometimes you have no choice but to improvise.

 

[terry78]

What I have learned is that college's purpose is to make contacts for future jobs. The degree is a nice title to have, but it doesn't guarantee anything like knowing a kid or faculty member from the school that can put in a good word for you somewhere.

 

[Raiden]

What I have learned is that college's purpose is to make contacts for future jobs. The degree is a nice title to have, but it doesn't guarantee anything like knowing a kid or faculty member from the school that can put in a good word for you somewhere.

Personally, when you consider the amount of money students owe for the loan to get their degree, in the end the degree doesn't really help you very much, and people who already have experiences in their resume will trump you if both of you were seeking the same job.

 

[Anita18]

It's not even big law that demands a lot of hours of worked. I spent my last two summers at legal aid clinics. I was averaging 60 hour weeks easy, and was carrying between 25-50 files at different points over the 4 months. That said, I enjoy that type of work. But you have to be willing to make the commitment.

The irony is, non-profits and legal aid/government jobs are a field where they are still hiring young lawyers-but a lot of young lawyers can't afford to work those jobs because of their debt load. But they can't get big law either now. It's just a crappy situation anyway you look at it. I'm very lucky that the Canadian legal job market hasn't been hit as hard as the American one.

Yeah I don't doubt that the people who really want to go into law truly love the work, but it's definitely NOT something to go into because you want to make money. There are definitely other, easier ways to make a comfortable living!

My sister is an overachieving genius and a nonprofit law job would be perfect for her, but law school is just so expensive and the jobs so scarce, there's no point. She's working at a nonprofit now anyway, so it works.

Yeah, the American legal job market is so bad that even my Asian mother is trying to talk her friends out of sending their kids to law school. "There won't be any law jobs in 10 years." I was like, "10 years? Try NOW!"

Yeah, I was like that after I graduated, and it took me quite a long time before I finally settle in a career. However, I'm sure there's alot of people who have gotten a certain degree, with plans and all that, but the poor job market just derailed his plan completely. Sometimes you have no choice but to improvise.

I think everyone's improvising at this point. I had another college classmate who was a genius in molecular biology, and this year she has to start over on her PhD at another university because her original lab (at Johns Hopkins, for crying out loud) ran out of money. It boggled my mind that someone like her would have to start over. When you go into science, you're supposed to have a set path!

Nothing's set in stone anymore, everyone has to make their own way.

What I have learned is that college's purpose is to make contacts for future jobs. The degree is a nice title to have, but it doesn't guarantee anything like knowing a kid or faculty member from the school that can put in a good word for you somewhere.

Well, for some fields, they require you to have a degree in that field. I would not have been hired at my job if I didn't have a biology-related degree. And my bf would not have been hired at his job out of college if he didn't have an engineering degree.

But for pretty much everything else, you're absolutely right.