Hello all, I’ve recently been reading Umberto Eco and semiotics seems like a very interesting field. Where can I study it? I have a 31 act and 3.8 GPA. Also, would semiotics be an appealing major to law schools?
It’s unlikely you will find an undergrad major in semiotics. There are some graduate programs in semiotics, with most of those being in Europe. You’re more likely to find faculty members or courses focused on semiotics scattered across several fields, so various aspects of it can be studied in several majors, e.g., anthropology, cognitive science/linguistics, comparative literature, art history, etc. Check this link for some further resources: https://semioticsocietyofamerica.org/semiotics-resources/
Your GPA and LSAT score is generally more important to law schools than your major, but in my opinion, semiotics wouldn’t be a particularly good preparation for law school anyway.
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Undergraduate degrees are about breadth, not depth. You have to gain a strong foundation in a major discipline before diving deeper. Probably the major field that has the most to do with semiotics is linguistics, but you can also find aspects of it in philosophy and anthropology - so one of those majors may be a good place to start.
Honestly, I wouldn’t look for professors who are doing work in semiotics. I might look for some colleges that maybe offered a class in semiotics, but really even if you majored in linguistics you’d take at best 1-2 classes in the area - you don’t really specialize until graduate school, and there are more important and significant factors to take into account when you make decisions about an undergrad college.
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Indiana University in Bloomington used to have a couple of undergrad-level classes in Semiotics (I know, because I took one) around 20 + years ago - don’t know if they still have them. Check their website or call.
I’m embarrassed to say, I cannot remember the guy’s name or his wife, but the two taught Semiotics at IU-B then and both apparently were at the forefront of Semiotics study in the US.
Indiana is a good university for languages, Linguistics, and anything related, imo. But it’s not the only one, surely…
Look at various research universities’ websites and see what they offer.
I can say that you will also study Umberto Eco and the writings and theories of others like him, in Comparative Literature. I had to read Eco for more than one undergrad Comp Lit course.
I don’t know if this helps you, or not, but… :).
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