Earn Your English Degree on the Coast of Maine

Are you passionate about majoring in English but have been told it will limit your career prospects? Check your fears at the door. UNE’s Bachelor of Arts in English focuses on the highly transferable skills acquired as a student of literature: command of language, analytical skills, critical thinking, and the capacity to understand multiple perspectives. Combined with internships, research, and study abroad experiences, you will be highly valued by many fields that prize people who can communicate well, solve problems, assimilate information quickly, and work well with others.

A student uses a pink highlighter on their notes

Why UNE for Your B.A. in English

With faculty specialties in literature and health, law and humanities, creative writing, digital humanities, and more, the English program will expose you to a wide range of topics and genres.

  • Flexible curriculum, allowing for double majors and minors
  • Unique HuMed program to prepare for medical school while pursuing your passion for English
  • Instruction in digital literacies, culminating in the creation of a personal ePortfolio
  • Impressive archival collections for research and creative  projects
  • Opportunity to work as a Writing Fellow in our peer tutoring program
  • Intriguing internships
  • Study abroad opportunities
Luke Colomey stands against a brick wall and smiles directly at the camera

Luke Colomey ’22

Business Administration, English, Political Science

Why UNE

I visited a lot of schools trying to find the right fit for me. All of the different things that I wanted in a college came together at UNE. I love the scenery here. The location of the school is awesome since we’re right on the water. Being able to look at that view every day is always comforting. The size of UNE was exactly what I was looking for, and I like that it’s nearby to some urban areas like Portland but still feels far away.

My favorite thing is the community. The faculty and the students here are so close. I really love it. Everyone is really friendly and willing to help out and collaborate. Through my experiences with classes, clubs, intramural sports…it’s all been so open and welcoming. There is a really good air on campus all the time.

Beyond the Classroom

I was looking for a way to get some of my own writing published, so I reached out to some of the English faculty. They told me that there was a need for officers for Zephyr (UNE’s literary and artistic magazine) because the officers were going to be graduating, so I took on the position of editor-in-chief. I worked with a team to really make Zephyr our own. We added a lot of things to the edition this year. We were able to get some extra funds to change things like the size of the magazine, the font, adding borders, and even adding color this year. In 21 years of Zephyr, this was the first edition with color.

Interprofessional Education

One thing that’s really stood out to me at UNE is my ability to work with different academic fields. They all overlap and enhance my experience. I find that the small programs communicate with one another for the full arts and humanities experience. One big highlight of my time at UNE is that I did the Arts and Humanities Capstone for my English minor. It was a capstone project where I had to do a big research paper. I took a lot of political science sources, references, and questions and mixed them with English, literature, philosophy, and history sources. It was a really cool thing to do to be able to mix a lot of my different interests and the different fields that I work in. I had professors from both disciplines help. It was a really cool, collaborative project.

I’ve gotten to know all of my professors really well. I get a lot of one-on-one and face-to-face time with my professors and my peers. The personal attention makes a huge difference. I get access to a lot of amazing opportunities.

Business Administration, English, Political Science

What will you study? English Degree Program Curriculum Overview

There are many ways you can navigate the English major.

B.A. in English Courses

The following are some examples of the exciting courses that the English major offers:

  • Law and Literature
  • Reading and Writing in Digital Environments
  • Victorian Monsters
  • Writing and Women’s Health
  • Fiction Writing Workshop
  • Animals, Literature, and Culture
  • Lyrics
  • Narrative Medicine

HuMed

Our HuMed program is the only one of its kind in the U.S., allowing you to indulge your passion for English while preparing for graduate study in our College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Meet our faculty and professional staff

a female student studies

Career Paths for English Majors

The unique skill set of an English major is far more sought after than most people realize. As academic training requirements in many fields are becoming increasingly specific, employers are eager to find candidates who are excellent communicators, creative and analytic thinkers, and critical readers.

An English major is a gateway to numerous professions, including:

  • Editor
  • Filmmaker
  • Lawyer
  • Librarian
  • Physician
  • Project Manager
  • News Reporter
  • Scriptwriter
  • Teacher
  • Television Producer

Career Advising for B.A. in English Students

Whether you have a specific career goal in mind or a vague idea of the field that interests you, Career Advising is here to help you plan your next step.

English 110

English 110 is our freshman writing course and a rigorous introduction to college-level. English 110 is not an introduction to literature or to the English major. Instead, you will be challenged to rethink your ideas, re-examine your interpretations of a reading, connect texts in provocative ways, and advance written arguments.

Experiential Learning in the Bachelor’s Degree in English Program

The English major emphasizes real-world learning, providing you with experiences that will set you apart in numerous professional fields. At UNE, we believe in learning by doing.

Hands-On Activities for English Students

  • Participate in the creation of student-run publications
  • Get on-the-job experience as a peer tutor in our Writing Fellows program
  • Conduct research or produce creative projects to present at local, regional, and national venues
  • Visit UNE’s DigiSpace to develop digital literacies and create new digital content for your ePortfolio
  • Create podcasts

Internships for English Majors

On-campus

  • Maine Women Writers Collection
  • Office of Communications and Marketing

Off-campus

  • Print and Digital Publications 
  • TV and Radio Stations
  • Libraries
  • Politicians' Offices
  • Law Offices
  • Schools
  • Museums
  • Corporations

For more information email the Academic and Career Advising Center at advising@cnlawyer18.com.

A student looks up research articles on a computer with the U N E librarian

Beyond the English Classroom

Maine Women Writers Collection

The Maine Women Writers Collection offers students in English rich opportunities to do advanced research with primary sources as well as to gain experience in archival internships. The MWWC, which holds rare and unique material documenting the lives and writing of Maine women, is housed in a state-of-the-art facility where you can conduct hands-on research and develop your own original projects. You might also take advantage of an archival internship, which would provide you with one-on-one mentoring, experience working with special collections, and practical skills related to library and information science.

The Bolt

The Bolt is the student newspaper of UNE. Formerly called The Nor’easter News, the newspaper was founded in 2007 by a group of students that included English majors and a faculty member. As a student reporter or columnist, you might cover campus events and developments or a broad range of other topics of interest to the University community, including national and international affairs, politics, entertainment, the arts, and sports.

Zephyr

Zephyr is UNE’s journal of creative expression. It is more than a literary magazine, as each spring we publish not only selections of prose and verse, but original drawings, paintings, and photography as well. All current and former members of the UNE community are invited to submit their work. As an English major, you might participate in the life of Zephyr by serving on our editorial board, assisting in the submissions review process, or helping to promote and distribute each new issue upon its publication.

Research

As an English student at UNE you have many unique opportunities to pursue traditional literary research as well as to craft projects that reach across the arts and sciences. Recent students majoring and minoring in English have completed research projects on such diverse topics as mapping nationalist stereotypes in Sherlock Holmes stories, creating classroom materials for courses in narrative medicine, and digitizing cultural and scientific materials to enhance sustainability efforts in the Saco River estuary. All were funded by UNE summer grants or NSF grants. Students have presented their research at conferences such as the Northeast Undergraduate Research and Development Symposium, the Maine Women’s and Gender Studies Conference, and the UNE College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposia.

Bachelors of Arts in English FAQ