August 2013 – Get Outside Yourself: English @ CSC

We are back in session here in English and Humanities at Chadron State College, and we are thrilled to be starting the school year with a brand new batch of enthusiastic majors.

As we have been contemplating the start of the 2013-14 school year, I’ve been thinking about what we might say to prospective students considering our programs. At summer orientation, I found myself hawking our wares at information fairs, where a good number of students crinkled their noses at the prospect of a major or minor that would put them front and center in front of more books and more papers. This discipline can be a hard sell to pretty much anyone who is not already passionate about reading and writing, even though it remains one of the best general purpose degrees around. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article that made a very strong case for just such a degree program for students planning careers in law, medicine and even science (here is the link).

But I’m here today not to try and convert unwilling writers and readers into English majors, but instead to encourage those people out there who already have a passion for these disciplines, but who can’t imagine making a career out of them, to consider a future where you get to work with words every day. Where you get paid for your passion!

That is the focus of our new promotional campaign for English and Humanities at Chadron State College. We encourage our students to GET OUTSIDE THEMSELVES while they are at CSC, as the image up top illustrates. Here, one of our students is contemplating the wilderness area right behind campus, pen and pad at the ready to record her thoughts. As the gallery below affirms, our students enjoy unprecedented access to writing and literary events throughout their college careers. We’ve recently sent students to Portland to attend conferences and share their writing with an international audience. We’ve gone to visit the childhood home of Willa Cather, and we’ve been meeting outside the school year for the Story Catcher Summer Writing Workshop, where we have been able to bring renowned writers to campus and share their insights and inspiration with writers right here in our region.

But what about AFTER you walk across that stage and get your degree. What then? The future is wide open to you. Evidence suggests that an English Degree can land you a good job in a wide variety of fields. But if you are truly passionate about reading and writing, and THAT is where you want to make your living, then there is no better place to get started than with the training and experiences that our program can provide. We will put you on the path to careers where English and Humanities students excel, and where they can make a living working with words: Promotions, Journalism, Law, Media Relations, Creative Services, Non-Profits, Social Networking, Government, Real Estate, Clergy, Film, Teaching and Writing… these are just a sampling of the jobs where you can truly get PAID FOR YOUR PASSION.