Get stronger in reading, writing, and critical thinking. Use those strengths to navigate our ever-changing world and create your own place in it. Through Suffolk’s English program, you’ll master a wide array of language skills to help you direct your own life and career and become a dynamic contributor in any industry.
Through narrative, rhetoric, analytical writing, poetry, and lyrical prose, you’ll engage with topics of social significance from the local to the global. You’ll compose original texts, strengthen your rhetorical awareness, skillfully apply historical and theoretical contexts, claim power in creative expression, and collect useful tools to reach diverse audiences.
English graduates often go on to careers in publishing, government, education, library science, healthcare, arts administration, journalism, and marketing. Others pursue advanced degrees in fields like literature, linguistics, creative writing, rhetoric and composition, and law
Students in our English program will:
You won’t just study your major—you’ll experience it through hands-on learning opportunities.
As an English major, you’ll study and create texts in a broad range of genres, forms, and literary, cultural, and historical contexts. Our core curriculum will ground you in world literature while introducing you to the theories and practices of textual interpretation. You’ll also take three electives with a wide variety of upper-level courses to choose from.
View the English Major Curriculum
In addition to our core curriculum, all majors must choose one of our three concentrations: literature, creative writing, and public & professional writing. These concentrations are also available to non-majors as minors.
The careful study of literature builds broadly transferable and transformational skills like close reading, critical thinking, and rhetorical awareness. In this concentration, students can take a wide variety of classes, spanning from survey courses that explore foundational texts to insightful upper-level electives that engage with diverse writers, genres, experiences, literary movements, and historical and cultural contexts. Guided by our expert faculty, you’ll participate in lively classroom discussions and share interpretations with your peers.
This concentration develops students’ creative thinking and imaginative writing skills in three genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Faculty create an inclusive, welcoming environment for students to build a supportive literary community where they feel comfortable sharing their work with one another. During intensive workshops in these genres, you’ll explore a variety of styles and find your voice while building sustainable writing practices. Coursework also introduces the landscape of editing and publishing.
This concentration examines how writers engage audience, craft, and technology in private, nonprofit, and government settings. You’ll investigate the relationships between language and thought, and learn how rhetoric shapes public discourse about current issues and events. You’ll explore rhetorical conventions and persuasive discourse in new and diverse spaces such as digital and print publishing, visual rhetoric, documentation, and personal platforms. You’ll also study document design and the ethics of composing for a variety of audiences.
Cultivate strong reading comprehension, writing, public speaking, and analytical skills through the close study of literature. To complete the English minor, you’ll take one lower-level course and four upper-level courses from the program’s wide array of curricular offerings and electives.
View the English Minor Curriculum
Learn to read like a writer and hone your ability to produce work in three major genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. As a creative writing minor, you’ll take Introduction to Creative Writing, as well as two writing workshops and two electives.
View the Creative Writing Minor Curriculum
Examine the convergence of audience, technology, and craft in writing for a variety of genres and modalities, both in digital and traditional print spaces, through the public & professional writing minor. You’ll take three courses from our selection of core requirements and two electives.
View the Public & Professional Writing Minor Curriculum
Many English students choose courses, minors, or double majors in areas that will complement their skills such as:
Find your people and hone your skills within our student organizations:
Open to English majors and minors who meet academic criteria, membership in Sigma Tau Delta confers distinction for high achievement in English language and literature and promotes academic excellence. Members are also invited to contribute to the society’s national publication, The Rectangle.
The Suffolk University Poetry Center, located in the Mildred Sawyer Library, is a space that hosts literary events by students, faculty, and reknowned writers, providing a forum for their work and engaging them in active dialogue with students, faculty, staff, and guests.
The Poetry Center serves as a valuable resource for students and faculty to do hands-on research into the history of the book, rare books in general, and the history of literary publication. It also maintains recordings of sessions with all visiting writers.
We partner closely with the Center for Career Equity, Development & Success to provide our students with internship opportunities and connections with graduate programs and employers in fields associated with publishing, media, journalism, editing, marketing, public policy, and nonprofit work. Students get coursework in designing their career paths in ENG 202 Careers in English.
To give our students a better sense of their chosen fields and industries, we connect them with local and regional organizations that provide in-person and hybrid internships (like 826 Boston, Hachette Books, Candlewick Press, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and with remote internship opportunities with groups like Copper Canyon Press, Folio Literary Management, SOHO Press, Oxford American, and more. Students can apply for in-house internships with the renowned literary magazine Salamander.
Students pursuing unpaid/underpaid internship opportunities can also apply for supplemental funding, with stipends available through both the Phillips Family Internship Fund and the Summer Career Development Scholarship.
This nationally renowned literary magazine of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction has been housed in the English department since 2005.
This student-run literary and arts journal features poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, short plays, art, and photography contributed by members of the Suffolk community.
A celebration of excellent first-year student writing at Suffolk and a reflection of the dedicated instructors leading our writing courses.
Here's a sampling of recent graduates’ current job titles and employers.
Suffolk English alumni have gone on to graduate programs in a wide range of fields, including literature, linguistics, library science, creative writing, history, public administration, education, and law. Our students can be found completing programs at institutions such as Boston University, Emerson College, Northeastern University, Columbia University, Simmons University, Lesley University, Yale University, New York University, Tufts University, University of Chicago, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Glasgow (Scotland), University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and University of Warwick (England).
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