What Can You Do With a Degree in Language or Literature?
— a true story coming from a holder herself
Last year in July, amidst my boredom dealing with the pandemic, a Direct Message came to my personal Instagram account from a student organization I was once involved in during my days in University. It was an invitation to do a small collaboration to speak at a zoominar (what else, right?) about getting yourself prepped for the professional world. With 6 years working in Human Resources, I thought I have to make the topic a little more interesting for the students, to be specific, bachelor students of French Literature. Yep. I hold a bachelor degree in French Literature.
Long story short, I completely ditched my old folder of presentations that I used to give to young students in my previous job. Instead, I started with a question that I, myself, have been asked A LOT by many people around me, or even people who are not even close to me (rolling eyes mode on here :)) ) : What can you do with a literature or language degree, especially in Indonesia?
That was the question. For non Indonesian, that question might have sounded quite strange. For us, it was a very common slash frightening question to answer.
The Road Less Traveled
Language or Literature degree is not a common choice for Indonesian people, it is considered as less popular choice compared to Industrial Engineering, Law, Psychology, or even Communications. People often wandered, what are the prospects of holding a Literature Degree, what kind of career you might have later on, other than being a teacher, a translator or a writer if you can get the shot. It seems very unpractical, and financially-speaking does not sound very appealing in Indonesia.
Not to mention the mindset of if-you-wanna-learn-foreign-language-just-take-casual-lessons-from-some-language-training-center-no-need-to-waste-three-years-in-University kind of way. Yes, it is true that you can always learn foreign language from a simple course, but, for me it was so much more. So I thought, sharing that piece of the meat was a good idea to my fellow alma mater.
Language and Scientific Research
“The collective evidence from a number of such studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks.” — Why Bilinguals Are Smarter by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee of the New York Times & SCIENCE
Many researches have shown that being a multilingual can actually benefit your career. Multilingual people have the tendencies to develop certain areas of the brain, that nourish their ability to think creatively, ability to solve problems, and empathies.
But let’s take a step back one or two, what did I actually learn during my uni days? My answer is, more than what you can imagine.
As a student, not only that I learned the language itself, but we also immersed in the culture, history, philosophie, art, we became an avid observer of the way of living from across the globe. That feeling of opening so many ‘doors’, and seen so many ‘colors of life’ is just amazing. Not to forget, you even learn the technical knowledge of a language, etymology, syntax, journalism, neurolinguistics, and other subjects if you are interested to pursue a career in a linear path, which are, by the way, making a come back as popular profession these days, but modified digitally in some ways.
Here’s the Catch
A few takeaway points that I emphasized to my fellow linguistic etudiants :
- Build your portfolio while you’re still at school — it is important to have another hard skills apart from the foreign language itself, e.g. public speaking, photography, crafts, or customer experience
- Getting prepared in advance. Build your persona. Maximize social media as a tool for showing your portfolios.
- Know where to search for the suitable job openings : linkedin, company website, official social media accounts, job search specialists companies, etc.
Look for industries that offer flexibility in terms of study background, e.g. trading, sales, services industry often look for creative thinking strength
Last but not least, having a specific skill might earn you big money, but being skillful AND able to speak foreign languages will enable you to earn AND take you to places.
Here’s a very well written review of the session, taken from the student’s organisation official blog :
