What Degree Do You Need to Become a Writer?

Video Transcript

"What degree you need to become a writer depends on what you mean by a writer. If you want to be a full time professional poet, then it doesn't much matter what degree because you'll need a trust fund, to start with. If you want to be a creative writer of any sort, I suggest not taking a degree in creative writing, because that will equip you to be a teacher, possibly a plumber, maybe a copywriter. Most creative writing people find jobs outside of creative writing. So, take a degree that will help you prepare for that. Certainly minor in creative writing, take a lot of English courses, but don't expect to be working as a creative writer. For other kinds of writing, there are a number of programs that will help you directly. There are programs in technical writing and professional writing, and that will help you tremendously. Technical writing is different from professional writing in that it specializes more in science and engineering areas, so you'll want to take courses in those areas. Professional writing is oriented more towards writing speeches for people, writing magazine articles, and so on. Some of that stuff is done in-house, by people on staff, a lot of it is done freelance. More and more of it is being done freelance now. Journalism is also a way of becoming a professional writer, although we are not encouraging people to go into journalism right at this moment. Newspapers are going out of business as I speak, but you can take a journalism degree, learn to write, and move into new media. For creative writing, it doesn't matter what your major is. For professional writing, and technical writing, specialize in those areas, because they are very specific skills and that's what you'll need."