What do you do With a BA in English?

For those of you who may not know, one of the tunesmiths for Disney's hit, Frozen, also wrote the music for Book of Mormon. Before that, Robert Lopez wrote the music for Avenue Q, which is where my title comes from. So what DO you do with a BA in English?

I bring this up after reading a piece by Susan Shapiro in today’s Wall Street Journal (paywall). Susan said that as a 20-year-old graduate student in creative writing, she asked a professor how to submit work for publication. Her professor responded that if she already was worried about publishing, she wasn’t a "serious writer.” WHAT!? Maybe you think this professor's opinion was a one-time aberration?

When Susan finally became a professor she wanted to help her students get on a faster track for success. Think the school was jazzed? Nope! Her department heads pushed her to assign 8,000-word, third-person term papers instead of the shorter pieces editors wanted. “We don’t care about publication or payments,” one said. “We’re not a trade school.” Holy paycheck, Batman! And by the way, most if not all of my columns, articles and other pieces are written in first person and run from 500-1,000 words.

I hated writing essays in high school and college English, but later in life I learned to enjoy writing and I honed those skills working in product management, marketing, and sales enablement. While at Tandem Computers my editor was Arlene Young, an absolutely amazing woman who metaphorically rapped my knuckles until I could write so well that the editors who support my PoliceOne column can post my work with little editing — well, except that I grew up with Oxford commas, while they use AP commas — which I can live with. I also have written for a number of other publications without a lot of editing, so I must be doing something right.

But getting back to Ms. Shapiro’s article, she writes that while top journalism schools and master’s programs in the fine arts charge as much as business, medical and law schools, they don’t freaking teach their graduates how to get a job and make a living. Just wow. She goes on to say that it is as if the faculty believe wanting to support yourself with the subject you study is greedy and shameful. Like any good entrepreneur, Susan put her talents to use by sharing practical information in her journalism, nonfiction and creative-writing classes. Information that could actually help them get a job. In fact, a Latino mother’s articles about her prepartum depression landed her a literary agent and a teaching job. Whoo-Hoo!!! Good for both of you!

Susan's experience matches mine; learning to write three-page essays (white papers, much?), strong opinionated arguments (funding requests, changing the release schedule) and concise emails (to customers, partners, and co-workers) can be useful in any field. Those skills certainly powered by career.

Ms. Shapiro, a New School professor, is author of “The Byline Bible: Get Published in Five Weeks.”