By Ian Melchinger
When my daughters chose their college majors, they went “hard STEM.” As a double-major in English and theater at a well-regarded college, I sympathized and agreed. English, as a college major, is reported as less popular and economically viable than ever. Bankrate’s 2019 survey ranked degrees in Language and Literature at the bottom of earnings expectation—159 out of 162, with a median income of $40,000. I loved the messages of the English major—that culture and identity are embedded in language, that great work not only merits rereading but requires it—but I know that English majors often struggle to explain the value of their field without sounding elitist or irrelevant.
And yet, the communication and writing skills sought in business are considered very important. Forbes posted a 2019 article about why writing ability is the most important skill in business, noting that all business relies on communication, and all communication excellence requires good writing skills. Those skills are key performance terms in many job posts. They are durable, long-term skills, associated with complex critical thinking and leadership. English majors clearly have these skills, but they need a way to bring them into the business world. If I had known about Instructional Design when I was in college, I would have aimed at it directly. Friends from my other careers agree that “Instructional Designer” sounds like what I’ve always been aiming at, even without knowing. There are plenty of English majors who might see it the same way.
Instructional Design can Make an English Degree Economically Viable
The ideal vision of an English major could be a great model for success in Instructional Design. Imagine: Great authors act as Subject Matter Experts. Professors facilitate collaborative studies. Learners craft language at an elite level. Well-planned writing makes an original contribution to the global conversation. It sounds ideal! The ability to make meaning out of language could be a treasured virtue of an economically viable, corporate-facing business leader.
Why isn’t that ideal vision a reality for many English majors? English study often values content mastery over transferable skills. But Stanford’s featured testimonials from successful English graduates don’t speak to content; they speak to critical thinking skills. Who makes these testimonials? Program Manager at Google. Process Designer at Inkling. Stanford’s most elite English students work in design and media tech. Perhaps some English majors need tech alchemy to transmute their academia into gold? I did. I freelanced in LA on scripts, storyboards, animations and designs, for the movie industry. Great entertainment changes audience emotions; great instruction changes audience behavior. And when entertainment and instruction disappoint, it’s often the quality of the reading and writing that was rushed or overlooked.
English majors have many skills that can be directly translated into instructional and eLearning design. English majors read the narrative wisdom of writers from other times and cultures; IDs interview Subject Matter Experts. An essay, like a Design Document, is a way of framing shared points of understanding. Done intentionally, English majors could be practicing Instructional Design all the time. The first three elements of ADDIE are alive and well in the work of an English major: Analyze, Design, and Develop.
- Analyze: English majors analyze when they summarize, paraphrase, quote, close-read, annotate, compare, and contrast. English majors are comfortable in an analytical mindset that allows for ambiguity and uncertainty, and that’s a strength in the volatile business world.
- Design: An English major’s table can look like a design-thinking workshop. Do you have strong feelings about highlighter colors, brands and aspect ratios of sticky notes, and cascades of flash cards? Your successful practice took years to mature. Rather than hide that process, bring it to market! Your analytical composition is a Design Document waiting to be seen afresh.
- Develop: English majors outline and draft, write and proofread; eLearning developers storyboard and iterate, build and debug. What English majors do with connotation, nuance and wordplay is a lot like what IDs do with keywords, hyperlinks and triggers. We connect pieces of meaning in a way that moves people to remember.
Hard skills, moving gaps, and a new canon
The most significant gaps between English majors and ID career success are visual design, business knowledge, changing technology, and seeing your reader as a learner rather than a judge. But these gaps can be mastered. There are models of great readers and writers who have converted their English strengths into success as an ID. Begin with an accessible self-starter like Dr. Nicole Papaioannou Lugara or Christy Tucker, and follow their LinkedIn posts, and you’ll see the synapses spark between doctorate work, freelance Instructional Design, and entrepreneurship. Spend time with YouTube stars Dr. Luke Hobson or Belvista Studios, essential game-changers like Cathy Moore , or thought-provoking posts by Tim Slade or Rick Jacobs: you’ll see a community of thinkers who are comfortable in academia but demand measurable results and a seat at the business discussion. Join an eLearning academy like IDOL Courses (a certified trade school) or Devlin Peck, and you’ll meet a community of writers putting in the hard hours mastering tools by Articulate, Adobe, and Snagit. And the lingo? If you can parse Chaucer, Shakespeare, Woolf, or Hawthorne, you will be able to wield the syntax of corporate terminology.
Facing the challenge of developing hard skills and transparent evaluations, many English majors will experience a pang of discomfort. If they face that discomfort as early and often as possible, they will iterate their prototypes, clarify their learning objectives, and find confidence in the uncertainty of quality ID work. The rewards are rich. The ID field could be a lifelong career choice for an English major, and successful IDs would raise the median earning for the English major. Instructional Design could provide a framework for transfer of critical-thinking, analysis, design, iteration, and writing skills into other aspects of the business world. We’d all like the humanities and business to be better neighbors. Maybe Instructional Designers will make the connection.
Photo source: Pexels