What will I be able to do after I graduate?

Jennifer McMahon: Obviously, for most the goal is to acquire a collegiate or university teaching position; however, to the extent the market is extraordinarily competitive, it in unwise to assume that such a position is guaranteed. One should go to graduate school on the assumption that the experience itself and the education gained will be worth it. Hopefully, an academic position will be too. At the very least, the experience will leave you more credentialed and therefore more marketable to employers in other sectors (e.g, media, communications, social services) if an academic position is not.

Teresa Rothrock: I was completely blown away after I finished my master’s to see what all doors that advanced degree opened up for me. The same goes for the ph. d. Besides academia, which is my chosen area, I see ads and opportunities all the time. People with advanced degrees, especially in English, as well as a few years in teaching are often called golden hires in the business world because they can do it all. The advanced thinking and language skills indicative of our major are rare and needed outside academia, and time served as a teacher is the ultimate in ethical midmanagement (barring those rare cases that make the news). My daughter-in-law who works for Dell in Austin taunts me with the possibility of earning six figures if I took my education and experience to the corporate world.

Besides the shortage of teachers, which opens the way for traditional and alternatively certified teachers, the business world wants us, too. I have many friends with English bachelors’ and few with masters’ degrees who have executive positions for utility companies, oil companies, banks, and other businesses besides the usual teaching and publishing fields.

Steve Benton: I wanted to find a tenure-track teaching job after I got my Ph.D. I never gave much thought to the market until I was going on it and was somewhat dismayed by the small number of positions that were available and the large number of applicants (two-hundred in some cases) for each.

Josh Grasso: Mostly, you want to end up in academia either teaching or in some other capacity. However, with an MA alone you can go to any number of jobs, and indeed, many jobs require an MA to get promotions and certain job titles. In general, I would say do it because you want to--and if you want to, you will find a way to apply it to your life. But teaching is the #1 reason to pursue a higher degree in English, whether at the high school or college level. If you love reading and discussing literature, it's a pretty good gig.