English

Major / Minor

The English program aims to inspire students in the pursuit of their intellectual and professional passions through the teaching of literature, literary history, and creative and professional writing. Through encounters with diverse literatures and literary traditions, and through practice in deep reading, critical interpretation, and rigorous research, students learn to contribute meaningfully to a complex and changing world.

At W&J, our students engage personally with distinguished scholars, journalists, fiction writers, and poets through visits sponsored by the Maxwell Lecture Series, the Branton Lecture Series, the Visiting Writers Series, and the Enid Parker Keen Poetry Fund. Upon graduation, our students have achieved success in education, law, journalism, marketing, social media strategy, technology, medicine, entertainment, healthcare, and management.

For more information, check out the College Catalog.

Beyond the Classroom

The skills our English students learn prepare them for research opportunities and internships in a broad range of fields. Our students have applied their knowledge during internships as legal assistants, marketing specialists, and communication and social media managers. They’ve also worked as writers and editors and found positions abroad to gain international experience.

English majors are able to showcase their work through on-campus events like the annual PrezTech Challenge, where students in ENG 250 Sound, Image Word: Reading Poetry in a Digital Age created videos and recordings of poems they studied in class with the goal of making poetry accessible to a new and wider audience.

Our students have also used their studies to prepare others for bright futures. Kelsey Julien ’21 served as a teacher in the Houston Breakthrough Collaborative summer educational program, which was designed to offer college-preparatory education options to students from underserved communities.

English Faculty