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Currently, I am enrolled at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, where I have attended college since the fall of 2019 after graduating high school, and I have a major with a concentration and two minors, which I have outlined below. I am set to graduate shortly with a bachelor's degree in the spring of 2022 after six semesters at State, and, in the following fall, I will begin attending school at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, where I will complete my doctorate in linguistics.
I am majoring in English with a concentration in linguistics. Linguistics has been a passion of mine since my freshman year of high school, so the quality of a school's undergraduate linguistics program played a significant role in my college-application process. Due to my strong high-school record, I was admitted to NC State, where I have been able to pursue a fantastic academic career in linguistics with my concentration that I plan continue as I begin working toward my Ph.D. in linguistics in the fall. Additionally, I have a broader interest and academic knack for English and literature, and my broader English major has afforded me the opportunity to sharpen these skills, as well. Additionally, as a devout Catholic, linguistics helps me to understand the significance of the Catholic Church's liturgical languages as well as its theory of the human soul.
I also enjoy reading about and engaging with linguistics in my free time outside of school, and my biggest avocational linguistic achievement is the ongoing construction of my constructed language, Azulinō, which I have been working on intermittently since my sophomore year of high school. (If you want to read more about Azulinō, check under the "Linguistics" section in HOBBIES.)
My chief concern is with the cognitive phenomenon of language as well as its structure, but I am also interested in the biological and anatomical mechanisms that enable speech, especially the lungs and tongue.
If you're interested in learning about undergraduate linguistics at NC State, check out the department's website for more information.
One of my two minors is psychology. In high school, I took an Advanced Placement® psychology course, which I was able to transfer to my collegiate record. Because I enjoyed this class greatly and because I had already received collegiate credit for it, I decided to pursue psychology as a minor; additionally, psychology pairs well with linguistics as a discipline, and there is some degree of overlap between them, which is most apparent in the field of psycholinguistics.
Additionally, I have an interest in psychology both in its own right and in the field of psycholinguistics—psychology in general interests me due to the complexity and immense relevance of the human mind not only in everyday social interactions but also in my private mental reflections, as well, and I additionally find the topic helpful in understanding my Catholic Christian faith more fully; however, because linguistics is fundamentally a mental process, I also find the topic of psychology relevant to my chief academic pursuit, and I find that better understanding the mental and neurological processes which underpin language assists in my comprehension of the phenomenon of language overall.
As with language, I am primarily interested in psychology as a phenomeonon, but I also take interest in the biological and neurological basis for this phenomenon.
The other of my two minors is technical and scientific communication. Before my interest in linguistics blossomed, it was preceded by an interest in the grammar, the history, and the written and spoken conventions of English specifically as well as those of Latin, which I can read and write reasonably well. Although this passion has since grown into a love of language more generally, I still have great interest in English specifically. While I am much less of a prescriptivist nowadays, I still know many of the prescribed rules for written and spoken English, and this interest led me to pursue a minor in technical and scientific communication in college because I had enough space left in my schedule for a second minor without prolonging my career at NC State.
My minor in technical and scientific communication should prove useful in my future career endeavors whether I become a professor of linguistics or leave academia to pursue a more conventional career path as a lexicographer or copy editor. The principles I have learned in this minor should prove most useful in the lattermost occupation, obviously, since the majority of my time will be spent proofreading others' work and making them fit for publication, but this minor will be helpful in almost any semi-formal communications, as well. It is never detrimental to know how to properly compose emails and address one's coworkers, superiors, or business partners.
This fall, I will begin my Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Georgia. My doctorate will focus on syntax and semantics, but, because I have not yet begun my Ph.D. and because I am the first person in my family to go to graduate school, I cannot be more specific for the time being. Afterwards, I hope to work as a professor of linguistics and receive tenure at a university in the United States. Because NC State is close to home and family and because I love North Carolina's geography and weather, I tentatively believe that I would like to return to NC State as a professor if possible.
If professorship is not possible, I will most likely become a lexicographer for a dictionary. However, forensic linguistics may also be a possibility because of my psychology minor, and, in total candor, I would not mind being a lowly copy editor as long as it pays the bills and allows me to have a decent work–life balance.
The University of Georgia is located in Athens, GA, which I have visited before on vacation. It is a beautiful college town, and I am excited that I have the opportunity to pursue my linguistics Ph.D. in such a scenic town. If you'd like to know more about the graduate program in linguistics at the University of Georgia, the department's website should be of great assistance.
This is a list of complete list of courses I have taken to complete my bachelor's degree at NC State. Italicized courses are transferred credits from Advanced Placement® courses in high school, and struck-through courses are repeats from earlier in the list that count under the relevant category, as well.