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I'm new to the forum and I had a few questions about my career choices, I live in California and I'll be transferring into the Cal State system soon and I'm a declared English major, my ultimate goal in life is to become a junior college professor. My problem is in knowing what I want to focus on as an English major, I know that no matter what I'm going to have to take a lot of literature classes but I see a lot of universities offer linguistics, rhetoric and composition, literature, and English education as a second language, I'm really interested in rhetoric and comp, but I'd like to know about linguistics, not too many cal state universities have BA programs in rhetoric and comp, if rhetoric and comp is what I like what do you guys think my best option is? where should I focus? from what I gather (which isn't much) I think my best bet is to focus on Linguistics, can someone please give me some advice if someone out there is knowledgeable on this subject?
I'm new to the forum and I had a few questions about my career choices, I live in California and I'll be transferring into the Cal State system soon and I'm a declared English major, my ultimate goal in life is to become a junior college professor. My problem is in knowing what I want to focus on as an English major, I know that no matter what I'm going to have to take a lot of literature classes but I see a lot of universities offer linguistics, rhetoric and composition, literature, and English education as a second language, I'm really interested in rhetoric and comp, but I'd like to know about linguistics, not too many cal state universities have BA programs in rhetoric and comp, if rhetoric and comp is what I like what do you guys think my best option is? where should I focus? from what I gather (which isn't much) I think my best bet is to focus on Linguistics, can someone please give me some advice if someone out there is knowledgeable on this subject?
thank you for reading!
OK, first things first - forget being a college professor, junior, community or otherwise, in English. That field is by far the most overcrowded and impossible to get a job in. You would end up working for pennies as an adjunct. I tried a similar career path myself, and ended up seriously regretting it. However, I do teach in a college now, and I can tell you how to get this kind of job (based on today's market, of course - things can change).
I recommend Applied Linguistics or TESOL (they are pretty much the same thing). These two field basically mean teaching English as a second language. You would find those majors either by themselves or as concentrations in the linguistics, english or education departments. On your way to finishing that degree, you could take plenty of other types of English courses that interest you, literature, writing, etc., as most of those would be considered related to the major. You should try to find a program that will lead directly into an MA TESOL degree (if you stay in the same department for the MA then you can usually finish it more quickly than starting over at another school). MA TESOL is the qualification you need to teach in junior or community college.
Some other things to consider - choosing a BA program that leads to a certification to teach ESL in K-12 schools (very handy for making sure you have a job, also a good general qualification in the field). Also, if you want to get a tenure-track job somewhere at a four year college or university, you can go on and get a PhD and there is still a market in ESL for college professors (although an MA TESOL or applied linguistics is enough to get a job at many schools).
If you like rhetoric and comp then you won't mind teaching ESL - a lot of it is writing classes, and there are actually opportunities to teach literature classes and similar.
Check out the Chronicle of Higher Education for news and commentary on different academic job markets.
thank you for your help, the university I'm looking at has a MA for rhetoric and comp or TESL, what do you think would be better as far as job market? it basically says Rhetoric is good if you wanna go into community college level teaching, is it the same? would either one work? sorry for all the questions, I'm so confused lol. Also, as far as my BA, I could either do English lit, English: language and Linguistics (which is probably my best choice) and creative writing. Language and Linguistics is where I wanna go, right?
If your university is saying you can teach in a community college with a degree in English (like rhetoric), then they are misleading students. It might lead you toward the basic qualification, but there are no jobs to be had, at least not in my state. Language and Linguistics sounds better if you are going towards the ma tesol, but at the same time by itself it is completely useless (just a BA). If you are definitely going on for the MA then I guess that's ok. However, you should check the education department as well and see what they offer. Also, you should speak with someone in those departments, find out what other grads have done.
yeah, I think they're saying "this will qualify you for that kind of a job" but they're not guaranteeing that there will be jobs, that's kind of an on your kind of thing, I think only trade schools do that and half the time it isn't true. My long term goal is an MA but I have to get a BA first, and I suppose you're right about going for the MA TESL, another thing that it says under the BA for language and Linguistics is that it can qualify you to being an ESL teacher, obviously I'm planning to do their credential program so that I can do that too. For starters, I think going towards linguistics is going to be my best option.
Also bear in mind that some CCs want their profs to have terminal degrees.
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