<p>I am a high school junior and am way undecided as to what I want to do.</p>
<p>Can somebody tell me what linguistics is/involves and the types of careers you could go into with a degree in it?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Linguistics is the study of language: syntax (grammar), semantics (word meanings), phonetics, sociolinguistics, language history, language teaching, etc. With a B.A. you can go into any career that requires a general humanities B.A., just like a psychology or sociology major. As far as specific jobs for linguists, those are almost exclusively academic positions that usually require a PhD. You could combine linguistics with a specific language such as Arabic or Chinese at a graduate level, leading perhaps to work overseas. I knew linguistics majors who worked as linguists in Australia many years ago, researching aboriginal languages, but this type of work was very country-specific. You can also do a combined degree with English if you want to teach. You can also go in the computer science direction, as linguistics has applications in that field. Someone has to invent decent translation software!</p>
<p>i am a transfer student and majoring in linguistics, i think it could go many routes. it could branch into pursuing academia and being a college professor. you could also pursue a speech language pathology masters which you would usually work with children with speech impairments. </p>
<p>what schools? program are youu thinking of doing?</p>
<p>honestly linguistics can differ greatly from school to school. some are more language based and require you to learn 2 different languages, and resemble more of a comparative literature pathway. some are more focused on the auditory and speech mechanisms of the body. some are focused on the psycholinguistic or computational aspects (this what i want to do). and some are more like anthropology majors, as it is a subfield of it.</p>
<p>If you get a degree in something like linguistics, you are choosing that because you LOVE it, not because you are attracted by the (relatively non existent except for academia) job prospects.</p>
<p>For example, you, and every other humanities major, have the option of going to law school.</p>