By Anna Liu
Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot that you can do with an English degree. Southern Virginia alumnus Angela Sardella presented a few of those options to some of our English majors in a career event hosted by the Writing Center.
In 2008, Angela Sardella graduated from Southern Virginia University with an English degree. Last month, she joined a group of English majors over Zoom to share advice about working in the publishing industry. She is currently a senior ebook production associate at Penguin RandomHouse, but it took a lot of work to get there.
Sardella shared her previous work experience and emphasized that even if you don’t get your dream job right away, any experience you get is useful. She used to work for a realty company, but she used her passion for writing and editing to write a tenant manual for their clientele and even developed a website for her company. Through a lot of patience and stubbornness, she climbed her way to being senior ebook associate for Penguin RandomHouse. She proudly showed off a few books she’s worked on because “bragging rights are bragging rights!” You might have heard of Brandon Sanderson…
Sardella gave tips on polishing your resume and how to nail an interview. She also went on to explain the structure of Penguin Random House and the intricacies of applying to such a large company. There’s so much more that goes into her job that I originally thought!
If this sounds interesting to you, don’t worry — this isn’t the only opportunity to hear from thriving English majors! In the fall, there will be speakers on creating the perfect graduate school applications and becoming a freelance copy editor.
Southern Virginia Alumnus Gives Inside Look to the World of Publishing was originally published in The Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.