Study programme

The full Linguistics Bachelor's programme takes three years. Each year consists of four blocks of ten weeks and ends with an exam week. In your first year, you will attend an average of 12 hours of education per week, taught entirely in English from day one.
Courses
If you choose Linguistics at Utrecht, your courses will be organized into coherent clusters. This ensures that courses build upon one another. From the second year onwards, you will start specializing within the field on Linguistics. You may choose from three different coherent clusters: 'Taal en samenleving' (in Dutch), 'Language and cognition' (in English) and 'Language and computation' (in English).
Teaching methods
During your study programme, you will be exposed to the following forms of teaching: lectures, working groups and project groups. Besides attending lectures and doing group work, you will also spend about 24 hours a week on self-study. Below you can see the distribution of theory, practice, group and individual work in percentages.
Teaching method | Percentage |
Lectures | 10% |
Tutorials | 20% |
Practicals | 5% |
Group study | 20% |
Independent study | 45% |
Internship
Doing an internship is fun and an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience. In the past, Linguistics students worked at Van Dale, Het Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal, Het Meertens Instituut and Readspeaker.
Group size
On average, around 50-60 students start the Linguistics programme each year. In the tutorials you will sit with approximately 20-25 fellow students. In the first year, the number of students in your lectures will typically be greater, since students from other programmes will join some of your courses.
Study guidance
You can count on good guidance and personal advice during your studies. We have various employees, such as tutors and study advisors, who will support you with study-related issues. But they also offer guidance and advice on issues that are not directly related to your study programme.
Binding recommendation regarding the continuation of studies (BSA)
At the end of the first academic year, every student receives binding recommendation regarding the continuation of studies (BSA). You must obtain at least 45 of the 60 credits of the Bachelor's programme in Linguistics in order to continue your studies.
