Linguistics at Swarthmore

etselec
Fri, 26 Oct 2012 08:27:52 +0000

You can find a lot of information on the department’s website: [Swarthmore College :: Linguistics](Linguistics :: Swarthmore College).

Generally I think the department is great, and is probably the best option if you want to major in linguistics and want to go to a small liberal arts college.

Department strengths:
-Nice course selection (core classes, Structure of Tuvan/ASL/Navajo, Field Methods, etc.)
-Flexible major: only 8 credits required for the course major and not many prerequisites. Lots of time to pursue other interests as well, or even double major.
-Excellent support and mentoring from faculty to do independent projects.

Department weaknesses:
-Small department. It’s just never going to have the depth and breadth of curriculum that larger schools might have.
-Mostly Chomskyan professors. You’ll be swimming upstream if you happen to subscribe to cognitive linguistics or another non-Chomskyan view.
-Not very much tracking/leveling of classes. The department has a very “flat” structure, meaning that as a ling major you’ll take classes in the order you want. This is a plus and a minus: it means you have a lot of freedom in scheduling, but it also means you need to take at least 4-5 classes that have no prerequisites & are the first Ling class for some others in the class.