When You Don’t Have the “Right” Background

Many students at Club Ed have an English or journalism background, and it makes logical sense that editing is a potential career path for them. But I do have students with a variety of other backgrounds: some are (or were) lawyers, or psychology majors, or history majors. And they sometimes wonder if this is a drawback.

Different Backgrounds, Different Advantages

I don’t think it is. Recently, someone asked me whether having a social work degree will be considered a negative by anyone, including publishers they might want to work for.

I look at it this way: those of us with English degrees are a dime a dozen. How do you distinguish among us? We’re all a great deal alike. 

But a social work degree is actually a marketing advantage, if you think about it in the right way. I suggest that this aspiring editor lean way into that when they talk about their strengths as an editor.

Find Specific Advantages You Do Have

Although I don’t have a degree in social work, and I may be a little off on some of the precise knowledge this degree helps people learn, I can immediately see things someone with a social work degree/background could call out as advantages:

1. You understand mental health and behavioral issues and how they impact families and communities.

2. You understand human development and social-emotional development. 

3. You understand the impact of environmental factors (poverty, abuse, bullying) on the above.

4. You’re trained in family dynamics and community dynamics and how they affect individuals.

5. You know something about trauma, trauma-informed care, and crisis intervention.

6. You are trained to be collaborative and to take a strengths-based approach to problem solving. 

The first five are absolutely amazing resources for helping AUs understand how to create accurate, realistic characters and to place them in accurate, realistic plots with accurate, realistic plot events in accurate, realistic story worlds. AUs need a lot of help navigating this: I would say one of the most common queries I make is along the lines of, “That’s not how this works in the real world/this is implausible.” 

The sixth is a powerful way for you to connect with authors. 

So instead of thinking “people will see I don’t have an English degree and think that’s a negative” I would say, “people will see I have all this knowledge an English major doesn’t and will pick me.” 

It really comes down to leaning into your strengths and thinking of them and sharing them as strengths.