So, who has experience with linguistics at Reed?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Reed College
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<p>Hey everyone, I was just wondering if there are any Reedies currently focusing on linguistics. Within the past few months, my interest in the field has grown. How would you compare Reed's linguistics department to other departments in the college? How does Reed linguistics compare to other liberal arts colleges' linguistics departments? What are the professors like? </p>

<p>Oddly enough, I didn't really hold any interest in linguistics until my visit to Reed in August, mainly because I was never even exposed to the science. I knew of its existence, of course, but my high school offered no formal training, so I never really thought of the subject as a possible major. However, when my Reed info session leader mentioned the linguistics qualifying exam, I was really intrigued. Linguistics links a lot of my interests together (history, language, anthropology, even math when it comes to cryptography and cryptanalysis), so I'd love to know more about how the major functions at Reed.</p>

<p>P.S. I have already scoured the Reed website for information, I would love to hear of your personal experiences and opinions!</p>

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<p>Not a Reedie or even an applicant (due to lack of flexibility in CS), but I’ve done a fair bit of research on linguistics at liberal arts colleges. </p>

<p>This is, to my knowledge, a comprehensive list of LACs that offer a major in linguistics (sometimes as a concentration of cognitive science): Reed, Swarthmore, Haverford (through Swarthmore), Bryn Mawr (also through Swat), Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps (off-campus, through Pomona and Pitzer), maybe CMC (again through Pomona and Pitzer), maybe Harvey Mudd (ditto), Carleton, Macalester, Wellesley. </p>

<p>Swarthmore/Haverford/Bryn Mawr and Wellesley have the additional benefit of (inconvenient) consortium access to Penn and MIT, respectively, which house excellent linguistics departments but are definitely not liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>tl;dr–Reed’s ling department is very strong for a LAC, especially in the context of few LACs offering fundamental breadth in the field.</p>