Pro­fes­sors Give Tips for Un­der­grads: Lit­er­a­ture and Lan­guage De­part­ment

MISHAWAKA—Many stu­dents de­cide to go for an un­der­grad af­ter they grad­u­ate. Bethel of­fers some ex­cel­lent un­der­grad­u­ate pro­grams, in­clud­ing an un­der­grad in the Lit­er­a­ture and Lan­guage De­part­ment.  

Some of the pro­fes­sors in this de­part­ment of­fered their tops three tips to any­one who might be con­sid­er­ing an un­der­grad in lit­er­a­ture and lan­guage. 

Dr. Robby Prenkert, As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish/​Hu­man­i­ties said, “I would say talk to stu­dents in our de­part­ment, ma­jors who are Eng­lish, Eng­lish Ed., Hu­man­i­ties, or Com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Talk to up­per­class­men and ask them about their ex­pe­ri­ence in the de­part­ment.

"And I would say if they are con­sid­er­ing this, take a class in the area. The sec­ond tip I would give is re­ally ex­plore your area of in­ter­est. The col­lege ma­jor is not for a huge per­cent­age of ma­jors who are out there and it is not a di­rect line ticket for a par­tic­u­lar ca­reer out­come. There are some that are, such as if you want to be a nurse, you ma­jor in nurs­ing and will likely be­come a nurse.

"But for other ma­jors there is an al­most un­lim­ited num­ber of pos­si­ble ca­reer out­comes that can re­sult from them. The third piece of ad­vice is to ask your­self would I be en­er­gized by go­ing to the classes that this ma­jor re­quires and do I re­ally want to learn about this sub­ject. Come and pur­sue your pas­sions here and ex­pand your hori­zons by pur­su­ing the things you are pas­sion­ate about.” 

Jen­nifer Ochstein, As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Writ­ing said, “Those who en­joy read­ing, work­ing with ideas and words, as well as those who en­joy in­ter­pret­ing hu­man be­hav­ior based on lit­er­a­ture and other texts, would likely do well in the Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage Dept. Some­times stu­dents ask how they could pos­si­bly make a liv­ing af­ter study­ing in the Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage De­part­ment for four years.

"Pop­u­lar wis­dom sug­gests that the only things they would be good at are ca­reers in teach­ing, writ­ing, and edit­ing. And while that's cer­tainly true, grad­u­ates of Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage can do so much more. The re­al­ity is that ALL em­ploy­ers need grad­u­ates who can think crit­i­cally about all kinds of texts, and that's part of what the Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage De­part­ment is all about. Stu­dents of­ten find this an­swer un­sat­is­fy­ing be­cause it's dif­fer­ent from, say, a nurs­ing ma­jor, who will likely go into the med­ical field, or an en­gi­neer­ing ma­jor, who will de­sign and build, or an ac­coun­tant, who will work with fi­nance or hard num­bers.

"The re­al­ity is that Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage grad­u­ates can work in those fields, too, just in ad­min­is­tra­tive, man­age­r­ial, sup­port­ing po­si­tions, and more. On top of that, be­cause so much of our world comes to us now based on writ­ten texts and vi­su­ally sig­nif­i­cant texts (think web-based com­mu­ni­ca­tion and video), em­ploy­ers need so­phis­ti­cated read­ers who can an­a­lyze those texts and be able to com­mu­ni­cate their analy­sis of what they read and see.

"The Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage De­part­ment is in the busi­ness of cul­ti­vat­ing thinkers, com­mu­ni­ca­tors, and writ­ers. I can't think of one field that does­n't need more peo­ple who can think, com­mu­ni­cate, and write well with char­ity and em­pa­thy.  The Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage De­part­ment of­fers sev­eral ma­jors that pair well with other ma­jors like busi­ness, phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion, psy­chol­ogy, his­tory, math, art, the­ater, the sci­ences, and more.

"Our de­part­ment chair, Robby Prenkert, has done a bril­liant job over the years of shap­ing the ma­jors in the de­part­ment so that some­one could not only study a more spe­cific skills-based in­ter­est, like busi­ness or ac­count­ing, but also pair it with a ma­jor or mi­nor in the Lit­er­a­ture and Lan­guage De­part­ment in or­der to fur­ther de­velop their think­ing, writ­ing, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. Those who want to get the most out of the col­lege ex­pe­ri­ence could con­sider a dou­ble ma­jor or a mi­nor in Lit­er­a­ture & Lan­guage to help them de­velop the kinds of skills that all em­ploy­ers need in the mar­ket­place to­day. We should never un­der­es­ti­mate the need em­ploy­ers have for peo­ple who can com­mu­ni­cate and think well, both ver­bally and with writ­ten texts, in our global so­ci­ety.” 

And Dr. Chris­t­ian Davis, As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor of Writ­ing, said, “Ex­pect to do lots of read­ing and writ­ing--and think­ing. Be cre­ative in your ca­reer plans: many em­ploy­ers want peo­ple who can think and com­mu­ni­cate well. Con­sider a dou­ble ma­jor. (Eng­lish and com­mu­ni­ca­tion go well with al­most any­thing.)”