My son is a junior this year and is thinking about applying Middlebury. His passions lie in Languages, Linguistics and Music. He is in his fourth year of both French and Spanish and plans to be fluent in both Languages before college and then plans to learn one or two more in college. He has some Swahili and Hebrew under his belt, but I think his plans are to pursue Arabic and German next. He also loves linguistics and studies that on his own time. He is thinking about a double major in Language and Linguistics (perhaps a minor in music although he really plays for himself and doesn’t plan to make a career of it). We already know about the strength of Middlebury’s Language program, but do not know a lot about the Linguistic Deptarment and its strengths/weaknesses. Can anyone tell us what the program is like? Is it big/small/ strong/weak, are the Professors well liked etc… We would love any and all info anyone has to offer. Thanks!
Your son sounds just like me, hahaha!
I applied to Middlebury for the fall of 2016, so I don’t have any firsthand experience with their language and linguistics programs, but I do know that unfortunately, Middlebury only offers linguistics as a minor. They do however have one of the best foreign language programs in the nation. My Mandarin teacher used to teach Mandarin Chinese there during the summer sessions, and told me all about the intensive language immersion housing and classes, so that’s definitely a plus. You can find information about the language housing here: http://www.middlebury.edu/studentlife/residentiallife/housinginfo/int_hses
But if your son is set on majoring in linguistics rather than minoring in it, Middlebury might not be the best school for him. Obviously that could change though, so if he is interested in doing languages while in college, I’d say Middlebury is still a great option! There are a few other schools that offer joint majors in linguistics and a foreign language, so I would definitely look out for schools like that (I know UCLA and NYU both offer programs like this, and UCSB might too).
The relevance of a linguistics major versus a minor may depend on which aspects of linguistics your son may be interested in. For fields such as sociolinguistics, look for a strong anthropology department and an available linguistics minor (or major). Should he want to specialize early in rarer, non-anthropological topics such as computational linguistics, then programs with suitable offerings would need to be sought out. However, this degree of specialization may be counterproductive for an undergraduate, partly because it would unnecessarily limit the college search process in general.
There is no official Linguistics major, but a number of students apply to do so as an Independent Scholar. I would not be surprised if sometime in the near future, it beomes official. I can’t really speak that much to the strength of the courses, but most of them are cross listed with other departments, and so can vary from a anthropological study of linguistics in “Language, Culture and Society” to a more language specific one such as “Chinese Sociolinguistics”. I have several friends who are majors/minors and all of them have been very happy with their experiences.