Society needs skilled readers and writers, always in short supply in the job market. Those who have acquired well developed writing skills and an ability to interpret, retain, and apply ideas and facts obtained from reading are multi-purpose students for life valued in all occupations and disciplines. That's the thing about English: If you have a degree in English, you can do just about anything because you've been trained to read, produce, and evaluate all kinds of documents from Volkswagen maintenance manuals to scientific treatises, from legal briefs to sermons, from John Donne's poetry to TV scripts.