Master's Degree in English
Degree: Master of Arts
Major: English
Hours: 36 (doesn't include teacher certification)
Degree Description
The Lamar University Master of Arts Degree in English is versatile and interdisciplinary. Upon graduation, you may choose to enter a professional field or continue on to postgraduate studies for a career in higher education. Specifically, the degree plans for this program are designed to train you as a literary scholar and critic, to prepare you for postgraduate research or to equip you as a certified, master-level teacher of English.
Why Study English at Lamar?
In the Master of Arts Degree in English at Lamar University, you can study literature, writing, rhetoric or combination. With both a thesis and non-thesis option, this degree will prepare you to study for a Ph.D. or pursue a career. The thesis option requires an oral defense of your research, while the non-thesis option requires an oral examination over the scope of your graduate coursework.
Career Paths
Many traditional jobs for an English major are those that directly involve writing, such as journalism or publishing. You might also look for senior level technical writing positions, handling everything from developing detailed instructions for electronics or businesses processes to working with the development of websites. A master’s degree is often the minimum or preferred requirement for teaching at the community college level, and some universities also hire master’s degree graduates to teach at the freshman and sophomore levels, such as beginning composition and writing for business courses.
Graduates of master’s degree programs in English are also qualified for careers in human resources, market research, sales, public relations, customer service, film and television and other positions not typically thought of as career paths for English majors.
Primary Careers
Secondary or postsecondary educator, doctoral student, writer
- Editing/publishing
- Higher education
- Journalism
- Technical writing
- Professional writing
- Colleges and universities
- Public and private secondary schools
- Publishers
- Broadcast companies
- Newspaper and magazine publishers
- Corporate and non-profit employers