<p>That is true. Even if you don’t get into the best ranked program, there are ways to make yourself stand out as a qualified participant in the field. Keep your goal in mind and learn what other participants have been involved in outside of the classroom!</p>
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<p>haha well, right now, let’s just hope for the best…maybe we will both end up taking linguistics classes at Cal next sem XD…</p>
<p>Good luck lala!</p>
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<p>Berkeley English<br>
Los Angeles English Linguistics
San Diego Literature/Writing Linguistics
Santa Cruz Literature Linguistics</p>
<p>The second listing is my alternate major choice.</p>
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<p>Thank you! I’ve been pretty stressed with the waiting game and am just ready to know where I’ll be planting my feet this summer!</p>
<p>Good luck to you as well and I hope to see you there :D</p>
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<p>Got into UCD, UCSB, and UCSC…I’m waiting on Cal, of course, but have already decided that I’ll be attending Davis even if by some miracle I actually get into Cal.</p>
<p>I’m a French major, but plan to learn Spanish and ASL as well.
Awesome thread by the way.</p>
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<p>^What made you choose Davis?</p>
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<p>Hello 
Want to study Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese :)–but probably majoring in something having to do with spanish</p>
<p>aiming for ucla! But honestly I’ll just be happy to get a degree hahaha-whatever UC</p>
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<p>There seems to be some confusion in here.</p>
<p>Linguistics is the study of language, not the study of languages.</p>
<p>Many linguists do not speak multiple languages.
Many linguists do not care about culture (sorry, but its true).</p>
<p>If you’re into that kind of thing, major in anthropology or area studies.</p>
<p>Only major in linguistics if you:
-are really into syntactic theory and like to diagram sentences (and I don’t mean like the way you did it in high school)
-like examining sound waves in really, really close detail and would find it interesting to measure certain features of sound waves (better have strong math/physics skills)
-think it would be fun to take a gigantic body of texts and find out what has been said before and then deduce general rules from this (better have strong computer skills)
-are really into phonological patterns and the context of sounds
-think it would be fun to comb through tons of data to reconstruct language trees and don’t mind doing problem sets that can literally take 24 hours to complete; figuring out the exact order of sound changes can be quite difficult because guessing wrong can lead you down the wrong path and it can take a long time for you to find your error (these things make organic chemistry synthesis problems look like a joke)</p>
<p>You really should research what linguistics is before you apply for the major. The core of the program is neither “touchy-feely” or “soft” (although the electives certainly can be, like semantics, sociolinguistics, etc). In fact, the core of the major has more crossover to math/cs/physics than most people realize.</p>
<p>@lala09990</p>
<p>Lots of things. Scholarships/grants Davis is offering me (although Berkeley may offer them as well), living costs, the feel of the school (I was lucky enough to visit both schools and really liked them both, but I have a bad leg and so the flatter the land the better), courses offered, and study abroad programs. I was kinda stuck between the two due to Berkeley’s prestige, but I eventually realized that when I pictured my future, I more often saw it at Davis, and that I saw myself happier at Davis and happy but kind of stressed out at Berkeley.</p>
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<p>Great post, thank you for the clarification. Do you study/teach/work with linguistics?</p>
<p>No, not really. I’m going to probably teach French, and will take some linguistics courses, but have just glanced at it outside of school.</p>
<p>Ah, it’s officially tomorrow. Good night, everyone =]</p>
<p>i heard that ucsc has the best linguistics program</p>
<p>@Michellaneous It’s nice to hear that you got into your top choice and have your goals well planned out! Which linguistic courses are you interested in taking?</p>
<p>@patsidono do you study/teach/work with linguistics? There were a lot of points you made that I never considered. I had a general idea of what it would mean to be a linguistics major, but definitely not in that detail. Math…yikes…</p>
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<p>@patsidono</p>
<p>I’m glad you brought this up. When I tell people I’m majoring linguistics, they automatically ask, “What languages can you speak?” I know some Spanish but I am fluent only in English. The reason why I want to study linguistics is because the field itself interests me a great deal. </p>
<p>With that said, all of the UCs that have a linguistics major require at least a two years of one language and most require knowledge of ANOTHER foreign language on top of that. I think the logic behind that is obvious enough, but knowing at least another language-its grammar, the history of its development, etc.-is necessary to the study of linguistics. To call semantics and sociolinguistics “touchy-feely” and “soft” is pretty offensive–semantics requires a strong knowledge of logic and in-depth understanding of phonetics and syntax, and sociolinguistics demands knowledge of statistics. As with any academic field–even those typically perceived as touchy-feely and slackerish like history and philosophy–genuine interest will find genuine challenges. It’s all a matter of how deeply you are willing to delve into the material and how much effort you are willing to exert in mastering the basics and to go beyond.</p>
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<p>@patsidono…
sociolinguistics is actually what first led me to majoring in Linguistics…haha
and I took some introductory linguistics classes before and loved to ‘dissect’ sentences into smaller parts or generate rules out of sentences…
I was actually a science student before going to CC…i took physics, chemistry,biology, calculus…
lol am i still good for linguistics or am i already doomed…</p>
<p>I do agree with patsidono that anyone planning to major in linguistics absolutely NEEDS to know what the field is all about. Nothing about it is simple. Go read about the theoretical differences of cognitive versus generative grammar. Just check out wikipedia. You’ll either discover that linguistics is boring or too technical or you might find it fascinating and right up your alley.</p>
<p>i agree with mshaddal, while i know that a linguist does not necessarily learn a lot of languages, i think the main purpose of learning one or more languages as a pre-req for linguistics is that we can later quote what we have learned through these languages to explaining certain theories…
this is what I know about linguistics so far…</p>
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<p>conniek I think you’ll do great with linguistics!
The fact that “generating rules” out of language does not automatically turn you off, I think that’s a good sign :)</p>
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<p>well maybe its too early to say , like patsidono said, linguistics is so much related to physics and math, and i havent touched that part yet since i have only taken some introductory classes… one thing im certain of tho…is that at least i know im interested in the studies of syntax, semantics…etc
lol
just accept me first, worry later!~</p>
<p>Then again, conniek, this is undergraduate stuff. You will be taught the foundation of linguistics. You’ll learn how to do all that other stuff later!</p>
<p>All the best luck to all of you!</p>
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