I don’t know what Kid #1 will do with his BA in English (OK, writing…whatever!). Maybe he’ll write the next great American novel. Maybe he’ll be a marketing rockstar. Maybe he’ll write for ZDNet. Maybe he’ll be the next Sondheim. It doesn’t matter. The more I think about it, the more I wish my doctors had been English majors. Maybe they could at least fake some bedside manner and communicate clearly with their patients. Honestly, an engineer with a BA in English could rule the world. There aren’t too many people who can bridge the gap between engineers and users with a truly effective grasp of the English language in all of its forms or present technical concepts without making audience members start gnawing their arms off to escape.

It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that a degree in English (or communications, or whatever) might just be one of the more useful and relevant degrees a student could obtain, with applications across a wide variety of disciplines. The point of college remains to learn to think (and master beer pong, of course); that can happen with a degree in biophysics just as easily as a degree in the humanities. That liberal arts major, though, just might have better job prospects in a knowledge economy than the biophysics major who avoided English and public speaking courses like the plague. —What do you do with a BA in English? | ZDNet.