@GoldenCaramel, I wouldn’t jump so instantly to declaring UCLA the best choice. If you’re ultimately interested in, say, phonetics, then sure—but if you’re in it for the cognitive science side of things, then UCSD or UCSB or even UCI might be better.
That said, all of them are fine. And really, the question of which lx program is the “best” undergrad program, if you’re interested in graduate work, is kind of a koan. Really, every program you listed will give you, in equal measure, the basics that you would need to be successful in any graduate-level lx program. In fact, the CSUs might even be marginally better if that’s your plan, because they’re more teaching-focused, and there may be more opportunities for mentored undergraduate research, which is a big plus when applying to grad school.
(Also, protip: Most undergrad lx programs don’t include required coursework in a non-Indo-European language, but it looks good to graduate programs is you have at least a year of one.)
I did French I & II, German I, Japanese I, and currently in JPN II
I also completed Intro Ling with an A last semester. Glad I had a professor with a PhD in Linguistics because I tried taking it at another campus & my prof there was basically having us take notes on YouTube videos every class until I dropped it. He didn’t teach IPA, phonetics, morphology, syntax, etc. But, my second professor did & it was a breeze for me & a struggle for the rest of the class
I really enjoyed the phonetics, morph., syntax type of stuff.
I used to be a CpuSci/Graphic Design major at university, then left to CCC. I am interested in language acquisition in terms of working with software learning programs or working with companies like Amazon Alexa, Google, etc. Which I’m guessing is A.I. & probably needs that CS skill again.
I have no interest in being a teacher for my career, although I enjoy spurts of teaching. I would teach English abroad for a short while. I also don’t want to work with children, which I hear speech pathology does a lot, at least with starting out maybe. I don’t like all the extra rules with being around children & dealing with parents.
I structured my CCC coursework off of UCLA’s requirements because I knew they would be the most picky campus I was applying to. I also printed out UCI’s requirements & coordinated the classes that suited both. I happened to accomplish a good amount of it on my own without realizing it, fortunately, but it motivated me to commute to another campus for Intro Ling & to go into Japanese, which I already had a big interest in.
UCLA specially states:
2 yrs of a single language + 1yr of another language. 1yr must be of a non-romantic, non-germanic, & non-slavic language.
Pretty much left Asian languages, a few aboriginal languages (that pretty much only UCLA seemed to offer when comparing school’s languages), & sign language
I mention UCLA being #1 in terms of how many people consider it highly prestigious by name & seemingly the lowest acceptance rate
I’m pretty sure if 3 different people were studying Linguistics at UCR, CSULB, or UCLA, an employer would favor the UCLA person before even meeting them ??♀️
So you’re talking about prestigiosity. That’s a different thing entirely.
But I’d be wary of trying to read the minds of employers—some employers go straight to the biggest-name school, others shy away from it, and in my experience most honestly don’t really care as long as you got the degree. And this is even aside from the fact that, say, Ohio State has a better undergrad lx program than Cornell despite Cornell having one-quarter the acceptance rate and certainly more prestigiosity overall.
Just wanted to point out that this thread, entitled Best Colleges for Linguistics, seems to have left out U Mass Amherst, which is consistently ranked as one of the top three schools in the world for Linguistics, and probably has the most comprehensive, diverse undergrad offerings for linguistics. Yes, other colleges overall may have a bigger name, but when it comes to Linguistics, UMass Amherst is well-recognized as a leading institution. If you’re paying for school, the out of pocket cost for those who receive an out of state merit scholarship (and well-qualified Linguistics majors seem to get honors college and maximum out of state merit money), it brings the cost down to about 21K/yr for tuition. Room and board is extra of course. In 2017, the max out of state merit award was 14K/yr for 4 years - I don’t know if they’ve increased it.