what do you do with a ba in english?

my epic quest to see avenue q started in 2004. i'd heard of it before then but was so wrapped up in my freshman year of college that i never thought i'd make it to new york to see it. but then i switched majors (biochemistry to english) and became much more involved in theatre (2 shows a year to 6). and it just seemed right. i was supposed to go with a friend and it fell through a few times. my junior year of college i bought a ticket through my college house to go on a group trip but that fell through as well. whenever i went to new york there was always something else that seemed more pressing to see or i was just too busy (or too poor) to see a show. so last weekend when i was in new york and had nothing else to do besides relax and the option to see avenue q arose, i jumped at the opportunity.

we jumped on the subway (going into manhattan from brooklyn just seemed too perfect), threw our names in the lottery, made a few friends in line, and magically won front row seats. as i sat there enjoying a show that had been on my mind for 5 years, i began to wonder what one actually does with a ba in english. i know lots of people who, like me, have this "useless degree" and they are doing all kinds of things - working in publishing, teaching 7th grade literature, actress, journalist, salesperson - the list goes on and on. what draws us to english in the first place? why is it one of the most popular majors at liberal arts universities?

my guess (and this is speaking mostly from experience) is that english as a discipline feeds a part of ones' intellectual curiosity in a way that few other fields can do. english majors are asked to read and think, interpret and re-examine, question and explain. we can approach something like joyce's ulysses and discuss its relationship to homer's original work or we can find the social ramifications of cross-dressing in a shakespearean comedy. english programs (or at least good english programs) do not want specific answers, they want many answers to the same question and they draw creative people whose quest for understanding far exceeds their own desire to be "right." english majors make new contributions to the intellectual world every day, whether it is translating a little-discussed medieval work, giving us insight into a long gone culture, or proofreading some major celebrity's memoir, which will encourage thousands to read. we english majors take the skills we've gained from reading countless works of fiction, drama, poetry, and nonfiction and apply it to all sorts of random professions.

so i guess this whole post is an attempt to answer the question that is posed at the beginning of avenue q, what does one do with a ba in english? the answer is elusive, like almost anything within the discipline of english. or maybe it is just this simple: whatever you make of it. i for one hope to give back to the world of academia. but we need people who think critically in all arenas of life and contribute positively and that, princeton from avenue q, is what we do.