swaysosway

So I'll most like major in Political Science, however nothing is set in stone. Of the list of colleges I'm applying to only two have this major. Boston College, which I love, and Temple, my match/safety.

Can anyone provide more insight into this major? English is my only language, however I hope to have a full grasp on the French language sometime in my life (hopefully even study abroad). I may go to law school as well, and honestly linguistics seems a lot more interesting than PoliSci.

Some other majors I was thinking about: history (general), anthropology, archaeology, and the classics. If I don't get into law school I'd be perfectly content continuing my undergrad education and earning a PhD., hopefully ending up teaching at a top college.

So is anyone a linguistics major here? Or even minor? How do you life it? Is it interesting? What other job opportunities does it hold? (Any insight on the above mentioned majors would be helpful as well)

lkm271

I'm a linguistics (and anthropology) major and I find it so interesting ... I hope to use my linguistics degree for a career in academia, so I don't know too much about other job opportunities it presents, but there options in diplomacy and a million other fields you would never think of. Also, linguistics has been mentioned as a good precursor for law school, particularly because of what you learn about semantics and pragmatics.

If you are also interested in history, there is historical linguistics, and as far as anthropology, linguistic anthropology is a major subfield of anthro.

If you aren't sure about linguistics, I recommend taking a general intro class. I didn't even know what linguistics was before I took my first class in it, but by two weeks into the course I knew it was what I wanted to major in.

aleeroz

I'm planning on majoring in linguistics and being pre-law.

I would recommend sitting in on a class at one of the schools you're interested in. I sat in on linguistics classes at William and Mary and Georgetown; each school had a very different approach to the subject, and it was extremely interesting for me. Attending those classes is what made me finally start leaning toward a major instead of remaining undecided.

grapico

poli sci is a traditional easy out into law school... I think philosophy or economics would be better, more rigorous, and score you higher on the inevitable lsat. Classics would also be better, but you will most likely need to learn either greek or latin for that...
There is nothing wrong with taking french... go for it, most B.A.'s will usually require at least intermediate college level of a foreign language.

HuginnAndMuninn

I don't know if you're still reading this but schools handle linguistics so differently. I've seen on CC put it in their English department instead of anthropology. That said I love linguistics and it's a very interesting major with lots going on. My teacher told me they are currently mapping more and more language into computers so they will be able to work better with spoken interfaces so that's one area. I don't know enough about law school but like logic it should help you dissect sentence structure.

tom8

I am hoping to minor in linguistics. Aleeroz, how were the differences in the teaching between Georgetown and William and Mary? Which did you prefer? Which seemed more challenging?