<p>Hello, Im currently a Junior at my CCC and im planning on transfering to UC Berkeley. In the end result I would like to major in Computational Linguistics with a Linguistics BA and a minor in Computer Science.</p>
<p>I was just curious on whether having a minor in Computer Science would be enough in going into the field of Computational Linguistics. In relation, I'm currently conflicted on double majoring in both of them instead, however I've been told that doing two majors at the same time can be quite difficult. </p>
<p>Should I continue with my current plan or should I double major?</p>
<p>It was not until this semester where I decided to take up CIS classes, so with that I barely have any pre-reqs for a computer science major. However, I am planning on transfering by the fall of 2015 and declaring Linguistics as my major. At this point, I was just curious on whether I should take up Computer Science as a minor later on, or double major in it concurrently with Linguistics.</p>
<p>Your suggestion is valid, however that would mean that I would have to stay at my CCC longer to finish my pre-reqs and having my intended major as only a minor.</p>
<p>Are you interested in studying computational linguistics, or do you actually want to work in computational linguistics and natural language processing. If it’s just studying and you’ll be happy to move on to a career in something else altogether, then just do a minor in CS. If you want to become gainfully employed in this area, you would greatly improve your prospects with the CS major. </p>
<p>Thanks for the link! It was quite entertaining.</p>
<p>In answering your question, I believe that I would want to work towards a natural language processing career. With that, it looks like I would have double major in both fields, something that I wouldn’t mind doing.</p>
<p>The question now is, is it possible to get accepted to a UC with all my GEs done, and be able to declare both majors after completing the pre-reqs there?</p>
<p>For linguistics I would have to take an intro course in my first year at UCB then declare it at the end of the year. I was just wondering if I could do the same thing for CS, by taking the pre-reqs at UCB and be able to declare it once I complete them.</p>
<p>In answering your first question, double majoring in linguistics and CS would provide a more extensive understanding in both fields. Whereas minoring in linguistics only gives me a brief insight into the science.</p>
<p>With majoring in CS and minoring in linguistics, I’m a bit skeptical in whether I am prepared to transfer without having the pre-reqs for CS. But from what I read, all those who get accepted to L&S enter as undeclared. </p>
<p>So with that, will I be able to still transfer without CS pre-reqs and still be able to declare it after finishing it at UCB?</p>
I went to Berkeley and majored in linguistics. By all means major in linguistics if you enjoy it (I adored it); however, not all of the required major courses are relevant to computational linguistics. Besides the intro course, for a minor you will have to take at least two core courses. Ling 120 (Syntax & Semantics) and 115 (Phonology and Morphology) are most relevant to computational linguistics; 110 (Phonetics) and 130 (Historical) aren’t really at all. Then for the two electives you’ll need, 121 (Logical Semantics) will be useful, as well as 123 (Pragmatics) or maybe UGIS 120 (Intro to Applied Language Studies). Or 106 (Metaphor) would be good, the professor’s actually working on an army grant to teach computers to (so to speak) understand metaphorical language.
If, on the other hand, you want to do automatic voice recognition software, which I hear there’s a growing demand for (think Siri), then you should take 110, 115, 113 (elective phonetics lab), and maybe 150 (Sociolinguistics) or anything that covers English dialectology.
Apparently the Berkeley CompSci website claims that a lot of tech jobs can be done with only a few lower-division CompSci courses. Obviously a degree would make you more qualified and marketable, but I never took a CS course so can’t really speak to that or workload. (Enroll during Phase I, though, those courses have HUGE demand.) No idea about prereqs but you can probably find something addressing that on the CS department website.
Also, some of my linguistics classmates are now working at Google doing linguistics stuff, and at least one of them has zero CS background or programming skills, so there’s that.