Strong communication skills are the basis for success in most career fields. At Mount Aloysius College, English is one of the "double major" options for education majors. Additionally, while significant numbers of English majors go on to earn Master's degrees and Ph. D's in order to enter careers in higher education, many also gain admission to law schools. Moreover, English majors with the required science courses can be strong candidates for medical school. Finally, a glance at the Wall Street Journal's surveys of the Fortune 500 CEO's will reveal that many English majors experience extraordinary success in the business world as well.

The Bachelor of Arts degree in English is designed to give students an excellent background in the arts and sciences while helping them become sophisticated "producers" and "consumers" of texts, both written and spoken. In other words, the English major promotes the ability to bring critical thinking skills to bear in speaking, writing, listening, and reading.

Additionally, the program fosters a view of literature as what critic Kenneth Burke calls "equipment for living." Burke suggests that in exploring literary works, readers are "trying on" the perspectives of different writers and characters. Such activities can help readers develop a capacity for empathy-particularly in examining the work of marginalized groups-as well as a store of strategies to employ in the readers' own encounters with the world.

Finally, through their development of sensitivity to matters of literary art, students open themselves to what Marshall Gregory calls "art's dimension of mystery . . . the suggestiveness, emotiveness, and inexhaustible power that language can acquire when it is used as art." The ability to avail themselves of that power enriches English majors as they explore the wide variety of career paths open to them.