Lady Common Sense and the quest to battle unemployment

(Previously published on /Magazine/ of Department of English Studies - LMU)

I chose to study English for two reasons: spite and Mr. Thomas Hiddleston. Everything was going smoothly until Lady Common Sense visited me at the beginning of my fifth semester. She wanted to know what I planned for my future. Let me tell you, it was an awkward conversation.

Academia

Lady Common Sense disapproved of my plan of being Mrs. Hiddleston. It pains me to concede, but she has a point. Thus, I started planning my future. My first idea was academia - a popular choice for English majors. I discussed this option with one of our lecturers at the LMU – Miss Valentina Finger. She secured my initial interest in this direction but also enlightened me on the challenges along the way. To put it simply: you need a burning passion you can hold onto when deadlines loom over your shoulder. As much as I love literature with every fibre of my whole existence, this sounds quite a serious commitment. I wanted to explore other options.

Entertainment industry

In our discussion, Miss Finger mentioned several colleagues in the entertainment industry. Some of them work as directors, others as consultants behind the scenes. Such a leap from literature to theatre is quite common. Because the programme at LMU allows us to work closely with classic texts like Shakespeare’s, it narrows the distance between literature and theatre. Some of the biggest Hollywood names like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese also studied English. Motivated, I joined the English Drama Club. I don’t think I will end up in Hollywood, but you never know where the future might take me.

Don't be afraid

Once I had bothered Miss Finger enough for a day, I lurked on social media to bother other people. The process gave me an idea of being a private detective specialising in social media investigation. But before I could explore that idea further, I found new victims of my obsession. One works at Allianz as a Project Manager, one as an Employer Branding Consultant, one as a writer for a media station in the US, one as a Senior Customer Success Manager at LinkedIn, and finally, my editor boss at my internship. While I felt guilty for pestering them with questions, Lady Common Sense was thrilled. They all have an English degree but thrive in different fields. Studying English, I realise, is liberating. Unlike engineering, an English degree does not give you a career formula. The only rules you must abide by are the rules that you write. While it may sound scary, it also means limitlessness. You can try anything that catches your attention, from sales to public relations to journalism and HR, before settling down. All you need is to believe in your ability first before taking the leap of faith. To loosely quote the manager at LinkedIn: just do what you want and don’t be afraid.