Testimonials

"I love semantics, which is the part of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, because it is a super abstract way of looking at language. I really enjoy the logic behind it. Semantics is really straight forward: something is either true or false. For instance, when someone says: “It is raining”, you can  assign a truth value to that sentence. But it is especially the combination of this logic and the theories we learn about during the social courses, like Sociolinguistics, that makes Linguistics so interesting. Because although we studied the same subject during both courses, we did it from really diverse perspectives.

The other way around, I also really enjoy courses that are closely related to artificial intelligence, because it gives me the opportunity to put the theoretical knowledge into practice. For instance, this year I wrote a program that automatically detects the language of a text. For that I have used a lot of theories from other courses about how to get the basics of a certain language. This program was based on the most common two-letter and three-letter combinations in languages. I enjoyed doing this so much, that it made me realise that this is something I would love to do for the rest of my life."

"Beforehand, they often said that the programme would be a cross between the humanities and science subjects. I think that was a little exaggerated, to be honest; especially since I was used to chemistry and physics at secondary school. But outside the regular courses, there’s a lot of freedom of choice in Linguistics from the second year on, which I used to make my studies more technical.

But no matter what, there are always going to be some courses that you find less interesting than others. I myself never looked forward to the courses without much of a technical aspect. But that didn’t turn out so bad after all, because the different parts of linguistics are related closely enough that there’s always going to be something in every course that you do find interesting.

Even though I personally would have liked to have seen somewhat more of a science angle, I’ve never regretted my choice of study programmes. The programme really appeals to me, and the many activities organised by student society Babel are always great fun."

"Before I began, I was expecting a very broad programme in the first year that would introduce me to the different sides of linguistics. That was true: the social, biological, psychological and mathematical aspects of language were all covered.

What I was certainly not looking forward to was the scientific side of linguistics, as I had always found that rather difficult. But, as it turns out, I really liked it – such as what I learnt during phonetics lectures. So it was really not so bad after all.

Halfway through the first block I knew I had made the right choice of programme. I was always happy to attend the daily lectures; I learnt things that I found interesting and which I was keen to learn more about. Ultimately, I’d like to find a job with a company where I can work with language and speech development and disorders in children."

"You also learn about the brain, such as what can go wrong with language if someone has a stroke, or how the brain processes language when you read or hear a sentence. Aspects like multilingualism and child language acquisition are also covered. And much, much more, of course!

And what’s really important: you’ll look at lots of languages around the world – not just English or Dutch. So, sometimes you’ll work with examples from Swahili, Hindi or African click languages.

There’s actually still a lot that we don’t know about language. Which is why our lecturers are still engaged in a lot of research. That makes it exciting!

My advice to you in choosing a study programme: be a Student for a Day and talk to students. If you’re trying to decide between two programmes, remember that you’ll have a lot of freedom to take classes in other subjects too. And even though they all say nowadays that you should choose a programme with good job prospects, it’s also important to do something that you like. Good luck!"

" I developed and worked on the didactics for courses (assignments and e-learning) for socially vulnerable target groups (NT2, extremely low education, work rehabilitation) and was given teacher training.

Now, I work for the VanDoen Academie. I develop e-learning, exams, practice-based assignments and assignments for the subjects of Dutch and maths for senior secondary vocational education (MBO). We mainly deal with pupils for whom Dutch is a second – or even third – language. Even though I myself don’t develop language programmes, I still take this into account by looking at average sentence length, words with a high frequency and glossaries for difficult words.

The connection to linguistics is that I am good at putting myself in the place of different target groups and writing at different levels of language.

My advice is to do a work placement if you get the chance. It hooked me up with people who were willing to give me a job straight out of university!"

"Now, I advise organisations (such as the government, banks and insurers) about web content that serves their own purposes and the interests of users. And I do so using a sustainable approach that fits in with the organisation.

Linguistics is a fascinating programme, but bear in mind that you will be trained as a researcher. When you graduate, the chance is great that you’ll have to find a job in the business world, where you’ll just have to see what part of you background in linguistics you can actually apply. But no matter what, training as a critical and self-directed academic always comes in very handy."