(Here's a Snapchat video that I made freshman year...) Linguistics... So, you speak a lot of languages?
That's not exactly what linguistics is about, and I'm so glad that I wasn't asked that question at my first post-graduation job interview.
Linguistics is the study of language, not languages, or in other words, the study of how language works and how it's structured.
I ended up double majoring in Linguistics and Spanish, but in this video,
I'm going to focus on my experience as a Linguistics major and talk about the classes that I took specifically for that major,
as well as my outlook on it and whether or not it was worthless degree.
Hopefully, this will be helpful to any prospective Linguistics majors who found this video
looking for someone who majored in Linguistics and lived to tell the tale.
In the Linguistics program at Miami University, that is, the university in Oxford, Ohio, and not the University of Miami in Florida,
there were five core courses that I had to take for my major, and then the rest of the major requirements were fairly flexible.
So I was able to double-dip and count a few of my Spanish major courses for this major.
Since there is such a wide selection of courses that can be counted for the major outside of the core courses,
I'm only going to talk about the core courses.
Of course, there's Introduction to Linguistics, which was recommended to be taken first and I did take it my first semester,
even though most Linguistics courses at Miami didn't have prerequisites.
In that class, we learned about the fundamental structure of language, with units about phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax.
And then there were two courses that I had to take in the area of sociolinguistics:
Special Topics in Language Awareness and Varieties of English in the United States.
Special Topics in Language Awareness was a variable topics course that would be about a certain topic in the area of sociolinguistics,
such as Language and Gender, or African American Vernacular English,
and when I took it, the topic was Language and Culture, a very broad topic, and it turned out to be mostly an overview of topics in sociolinguistics.
Varieties of English in the United States was about not just dialects of English in the United States,
or language varieties, since dialect tends to be a politically-charged term,
but also various sociolinguistics topics, sometimes overlapping with the previous course about Language and Culture.
And then another core course that I had to take was History of the English Language.
In addition to learning about the medieval history of England that affected the evolution of English,
such as the Norman invasion, or all that other stuff that happened,
We studied the linguistic changes that English made, such as in its phonology and syntax.
The best part of that course was that my professor drew his own cartoons for the slides in his lectures.
Finally, I had to take one of two capstone courses, which were offered in the spring semester on alternating years.
One was about generative grammar, and the other was about discourse analysis.
I took Discourse Analysis, which was about analyzing discourse and its various aspects, or the relations between discourse and other concepts, such as power.
I can't describe it that well because discourse analysis is so broad and interdisciplinary
that sometimes I got confused about exactly what it is, but I enjoyed it and found it fascinating.
These courses were fascinating, but I didn't feel that the program placed enough emphasis on practical areas of Linguistics.
I would've loved to been able to take classes about language teaching without an education major,
or for Miami to have offered classes in computational linguistics,
since that's where most jobs in linguistics outside of academia are.
Or even something like advanced phonology would have been a nice class to have had as an option.
The Linguistics program did offer a TESOL certificate at the graduate level that undergraduates could complete,
which I attempted, but I ended up dropping it the same semester.
I was taking a course about theories in second language acquisition,
and a course about teaching second language composition, which were both required for the certificate.
The second language composition class didn't fit my attention span very well and had three giant projects,
so I ended up withdrawing from it when I was struggling on the first project,
which was a 12-page annotated bibliography.
It was also the first semester of my second year,
so that was the first class that I ever had assign an annotated bibliography.
As to computational linguistics, I took Fundamentals of Programming and Problem Solving, the introductory computer science major class,
as an elective that also counted for my Linguistics major,
the semester before I studied abroad, and I actually loved it so much that I wished I had taken it earlier on
so that I could have had time to minor in Computer Science,
instead of graduating too soon for that.
Now, is that all to say that it was a useless major and a worthless degree? Not exactly.
It absolutely enriched my study of foreign languages by making me more aware of how language is structured,
especially regarding phonetics and phonology in application to pronunciation in foreign languages.
But to be honest, it isn't a valuable major at the undergraduate level either.
Regarding job prospects, it's good for jobs that require a bachelor's degree with any major,
but those aren't always the most desirable jobs, or...
not even the best paying sometimes.
Most jobs directly related to Linguistics require a master's degree, or even a PhD, even if it's outside of academia,
because the undergraduate Linguistics courses are at too low of a level to give the skills needed for those jobs.
Since there are jobs out there for any major and possibilities for useful graduate degrees,
I'm not going to hop on the worthless degree hysteria train with this major, but throughout college,
I did feel aimless with this major because of its lack of focus in a specific career path or job field.
Many of my peers were getting internships or had more concrete career paths with their different majors.
I don't recommend majoring in Linguistics if you have student loans because the job that you find after
probably won't be high paying enough to pay off your loans. My scholarship covered most of my tuition,
so I didn't take student loans, but if I were taking out loans,
I probably would have either dropped out of college after my first semester, or switched my major to software engineering.
I don't believe that your major doesn't matter, doesn't define your career,
or whatever they tell you at orientation to keep you from switching the Linguistics major that you put on your college application
to the Computer Science major that your parents advise that you switch to,
because many job openings and internships do ask for specific majors and technical skills.
But it's not the end of the world when you do go through and finish that Linguistics major,
and see your classmates from other majors celebrating their first job offers before you even completed the first draft of your resume.
If you stayed through to the end, thanks for watching, and be sure to leave a like.
If you majored in Linguistics, or are majoring in Linguistics,
I'd love for you to comment about your story, your experience, and/or what career you got into.
In the near future, I'm planning to make a sequel to this video about my experience majoring in Spanish,
so stay tuned for that and subscribe if you haven't already.
Until next time!
