After graduation

After graduating in Linguistics, you can choose to enter the labour market or continue your studies. On this page, we have listed a number of possibilities for you.

What can you do with a degree in Linguistics?

Studenten kletsen voor de Dom-kerk
Photo: Tim Vermeire

The labour market perspective for graduates in linguistics is favourable. You have had a broad education, with an in-depth study and can therefore go in any direction. What about a job in language teaching? Or as a communication consultant? Or editor/journalist?

Continue study after graduating in Linguistics

Photo: Tim Vermeire

Unlike in professional programmes, at university you are often not trained for a specific profession. By obtaining a university degree, you show that you have an academic working and thinking level. You can go to work, but many students continue with a subsequent master's degree after a bachelor's degree.

At Utrecht University you can opt for a:

  • One-year master's programme: these one-year master's programmes prepare you to pursue a profession at an academic level, for example as a language learning advisor or communication advisor.
  • Two-year master's programmes: these two-year master's programmes will prepare you for a career as a researcher, for example as a PhD student in Linguistics. Often, alumni also work for (independent) research centers.

Continue your studies at UU

Depending on the choices you make and the content of your bachelor's programme, after graduating you can examine whether you can be admitted to one of the following master's programmes at Utrecht University. You will have to take into account specific admission requirements that vary per programme. Sometimes, for example, you will have to take a pre-master's programme first.

Pursuing a degree in Linguistics introduces you to possible job perspectives that you might not hear often, such as speech therapist or forensic linguist. When I started the programme, I wanted to become a researcher. Nowadays, I plan to become a teacher in Dutch for forcibly displaced people.

Professions

After completing your Bachelor's or Master's studies, you will eventually enter the labour market. There you can go in any direction, but most of our students choose one of the following professions or directions:

PhD

When you have completed a master's programme and you are certain that you want to continue as a researcher, you can choose to do a PhD in your field. A PhD track takes four years and concludes with a dissertation with which you will be awarded a doctorate. Doctoral students - also known as PhDs - make an important contribution to Utrecht's research.