| Esther Neal graduated from Mississippi State as an English major in 2007 and is currently working on her Masters of Business Administration at MSU. An excellent student in both English and foreign languages during her years as an undergraduate, Esther shares the benefits of her English degree as she pursues her MBA and considers jobs in the global marketplace once she completes her graduate work. I asked Esther to reflect on the importance of the English to her and to her future career plans. | |
Although I can’t say with certainty what I want to be doing in the next two years, much less five, I hope to take my undergraduate English major and Spanish minor, coupled with my MBA and use them to work internationally as a corporate missionary. Whether that means living at home or abroad is yet to be determined, but I am very interested in studying culture and learning new languages.
My MBA degree will give me the business background to help me achieve this goal. My assistantship in the Student Affairs office is providing me with opportunities to learn more about how business works from a more administrative perspective. I had the privilege of going with the University as a part of the Global Study Tour 2008 to South Korea at the beginning of this summer. That experience opened my eyes to a global marketplace developing unlike any other time in our history. Many countries, like Korea, seek to have a competitive advantage by educating their youth to speak English in order to develop a more strategic partnership with America, and consequently, offer incredible incentive packages for English teachers abroad.
Academically, the English degree from Mississippi State has served me exceptionally well. I am more disciplined than most of my non-English major MBA counterparts in the amount of time I devote to reading and studying. Since beginning work on my MBA, I have come to appreciate my English degree even more now than ever before. As an English major, I learned to communicate clearly, both in oral presentations and in written papers. In all of the research groups of which I have been a member in business school, I have served as the chief editor of group papers and presentations. I am finding that even among native English speakers, few know how to communicate their thoughts clearly and specifically, few can recognize glaring grammar mistakes, few can spell well, and few can think critically. Because of the skills I developed as an English major, I am called upon at work to proofread and edit important emails and submissions for various publications and reports.
My English degree has opened more doors for me than I could imagine. I began the MBA program very apprehensive because I had never taken a Business class before, and I was worried about how I would perform in a completely different environment, until I learned that English majors typically do really well in the MBA program and are often times a preferred commodity because of the unique skill set we posses and the diverse opinions and points of view we offer.
One of the charming things to me about the English program is the classroom size. The smaller, more interactive classroom experience allowed me to feel a personal connection with my professors that students in other disciplines often lack. In addition to discussing literature and writing intimately with my professors as an English major, one of the most insightful personal experiences I had during my time as at MSU was in compiling my senior portfolio. As I dug through my archives of all the previous papers I had written and began to relive the writing and revision processes for each of them, I realized how much my writing had matured. I also realized, for the first time, just how significant my degree really was. The senior portfolio only revealed what I had already begun to feel by the time I graduated with a degree in English—and what I know to be true today as graduate student in business. Majoring in English has given me such a broad, firm foundation to make me competitive among my peers. I am well read, comparatively speaking. I am open-minded. I know how to manage my time well, and I possess a great deal of self-discipline—all of which I attribute largely to lessons I learned from studying English at Mississippi State University.