Modern languages/Linguistics course at uni

Hello everyone, I'm currently in Y11 but I think I've decided to do a combined course of French & Linguistics at uni. I've looked at unis like Oxford, Edinburgh and Warwick so far, and I'm thinking to do French, Bio and Latin for A Level (as well as an Ancient Greek GCSE). Does anyone study linguistics or modern languages at uni and have any tips to get in? Is linguistics a worthy degree and what fields to graduates go into? (I've been getting a lot of weird looks..😂)

Reply 1

jbrandagamba

Linguistics is a very academic discipline so it's unlikely it would be directly useful unless you wanted to go into research routes/postgraduate degrees. However, it can be very interesting and useful for language learning generally, so if you're broadly interested in languages and language structure, you may enjoy it. I would recommend looking at a few basic linguistics textbooks before making a decision, however - Le Francais dans tous les sens by Henriette Walter is a classic (albeit quite basic) introduction for French, and An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin for general linguistics.

Also bear in mind that some linguistics modules may be available even if you don't specifically apply to a linguistics degree - I did French sole at Oxford, but took two French-specific linguistics modules, but I wasn't able to do any of the general linguistics modules. If you want to do a language with linguistics at Oxford, you have to do a specific entrance exam that tests your ability to analyse language structure in general.

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by KKarsai

It's as useful as any other degree. The vast majority of graduate jobs and employers don't care what degree you studied - the degree is just a tick box to see that you have a degree with 2:1 or above. After that point it generally is a moot point and they're going to be looking at your relevant work experience through internships/placements/work experience/shadowing etc, and any other relevant transferable skills you've developed through e.g. leadership/committee positions in societies etc. And of course, your performance on any assessment centre activities and psychometric tests they use.

You could just as well go into investment banking as you could graduate study, and more or less whatever else inbetween that isn't a professional field requiring a specific degree background (e.g. engineering, healthcare professions courses, etc). I've seen that it doesn't seem overly unusual for linguistics and related philological PhDs to go and work for tech companies like amazon and google on various aspects of natural language processing, large language models, etc, if they don't remain in academia. Of course if you're aiming to stop after undergrad that may or may not end up being a route you are able to go down.

Reply 3

jbrandagamba

Original post by artful_lounger

It's as useful as any other degree. The vast majority of graduate jobs and employers don't care what degree you studied - the degree is just a tick box to see that you have a degree with 2:1 or above. After that point it generally is a moot point and they're going to be looking at your relevant work experience through internships/placements/work experience/shadowing etc, and any other relevant transferable skills you've developed through e.g. leadership/committee positions in societies etc. And of course, your performance on any assessment centre activities and psychometric tests they use.
You could just as well go into investment banking as you could graduate study, and more or less whatever else inbetween that isn't a professional field requiring a specific degree background (e.g. engineering, healthcare professions courses, etc). I've seen that it doesn't seem overly unusual for linguistics and related philological PhDs to go and work for tech companies like amazon and google on various aspects of natural language processing, large language models, etc, if they don't remain in academia. Of course if you're aiming to stop after undergrad that may or may not end up being a route you are able to go down.

This has nothing to do with OP's post, you just sound like someone taking out your personal experiences on someone who wasn't asking for it

Reply 4

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by jbrandagamba

This has nothing to do with OP's post, you just sound like someone taking out your personal experiences on someone who wasn't asking for it

They literally stated at the end of their thread "is this a worthwhile degree and what fields do graduates go into". And so I was addressing this by pointing out the range of opportunities available (i.e. many of them!). I'm not sure how you feel that is "taking it out" on someone but if so I would suggest you look inwards?

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 5

mkthestudent

There’s fields like AI bcs of computational linguistics and human feedback loops in data quality. There’s speech and language therapy. The degree could be useful potentially in copywriting and journalism especially alongside a language. It’s useful. Do what you love and along the course I’m sure you’ll find what final outcome is best for you!