After Graduation Resources & English Department Alumni
Welcome to the English Department's "After Graduation" page. Here you will find a repository of recent alumni outreach efforts, as well as links to career resources and alumni-related content. A celebration of our former students in its own right, this page also serves prospective and current students in English, highlighting the futures that majors, minors, and graduate students might pursue with their degrees.
If you are a graduate of the English Department, please consider letting us know how your studies at UofL have shaped your career. Thanks!
Alumni Interviews
Undergraduate Studies
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, Stockton University
Joe Manning, Deputy Director, Louisville Story Program
Alex Muckler, Assistant Director of Admissions, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, UofL
Daniel Cobourn, J.D., Columbia Law School
Allison Danielle Dolan, Assistant Dean for Advising, College of Arts & Sciences, UofL
Rachel Salmon, Graduate Student, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
Tian Chan, J.D., Lawyer at Padula Bennardo Levine, LLP, and Eberle Law, PLLC
Stephen George, President and General Manager of Louisville Public Media
Graduate Studies
Kevin Bailey, Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville
Jessica Farquhar, Poet & Director of Business Transformation (Health Insurance Industry)
Rachel Rodriguez, Director of the Writing Center, Washington College
Alex Jordan Way, Assistant Professor, Department of Writing and Rhetoric Studies, University of Utah
Brent Coughenour, Dean, Mid-America College
Thinking about "After Graduation"
Did you know that famous people in the entertainment industry, such as movie director Steven Spielberg, musician Sting, actors Jodi Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Matt Damon, and Emma Thompson, to name a few, all majored in English? English majors have also excelled in the corporate and legal world: consider, for instance, former Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, the former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs and former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, as well as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Occupations where English majors traditionally do well include:
● Lawyers, Judges, and Paralegal Professionals
● Media Broadcasters
● Politicians (consider Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada!)
● Creative Writers and Editors
● School and College Administrators
● Teachers
● Journalists
● Medical Doctors (famous examples include psychologist B.F. Skinner and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, former director of NIH)
Your English degree is also excellent preparation for professional and graduate programs in a variety of disciplines, including but not exclusive to law, education, creative writing, journalism, and administration. Our recent program graduates are now working at such universities as the University of Washington, Syracuse University, Oberlin College, the University of Alabama, etc.
Creative Writing Program Placements
One way that our students prepare for their futures is through the English Department Internship Program. We have established direct connections with a range of community and institutional partners, and we have curated a list of tried-and-true placements. Many of our students have taken their first steps towards meaningful careers through the work experiences and network connections that they developed during their internships. To learn more about the internship program in English, including a current list of open positions, please click here.
Click here to learn more about job search resources provided by UofL's University Career Center, including information about job shadowing, informational interviewing, internships, job interviews, and networking. Please consider setting up an appointment with a career coach to learn more.
Click here to learn more about what people are doing with their undergraduate training in humanities disciplines such as English.
Click here to access a range of career resources and first-hand accounts about the work paths that people have traveled with their English degrees in hand.
For further information about UofL English happenings, please check out our news feed and follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Youtube
