hoviariel

Awesome advice. But for the 'housing' issue, aren't dorms a better alternative to rent?

I'm not a grad yet (still in the waiting period), but I'm a bit worried as to how I can manage working as a RA/TA+studying while also taking care of my nutrition and housing needs with a stipend that a lot of people say is the cheapest salary you can get. Any advice or warnings?

Does anyone know of some program or whatever that can derive something like an average range for the search results dates?

We're gonna need it.

Does anyone here find the 'results search' page useful? I just tried to see how OSU works with its date ranges and the range is freakishly nerve-wracking because it is so close. Ignorance feels a lot better.

If I were you, I'ld would just do what I did the last month: apply to everything that I wanted: American Phd (I'm an international), American MA, and local MA. The thing is that you're just comparing between hypotheticals now. There's no way to know that in a year or 2 you will actually face the choice of going to either a PhD, MA, or Zurich because you got accepted into all of them.

Hi all. Trivial question but, how will we get notified of our application status? I assumed that once the adcom of a school decides to accept someone, they'll send him an email with that 'We are happy bla bla', and if it's a reject then it'll be 'We are sorry to bla'. But, I saw around the Results Search that some people had to call their schools and constantly go on that applyyourself app to find out about their acceptance, rejection, or waitlisting. So, does that mean that I will be forced to neurotically log in online for the next 2-3 months to find out?

Hello. I submitted all my grad applications alongside the writing samples like a month ago (deadlines were early-mid December). For my writing sample I used a copy of my undergrad Senior Study thesis which I worked on in this summer-early fall. The problem was that this 20-paged 10,000 word baby was a work in progress. That is, I submitted the final draft of my paper last month to grad schools and my advisor graded the same final version now (which I submitted as my senior study paper). I got an A, but according to the guy there were structural issues in the paper, as in I could've handled my lit review/methodology part better: "This is generally well written, except for some minor ‘structural’ issues which I commented on above. I’m fairly certain that by the time you’re required to write extended MA papers, you will have mastered the needed skills as long as you continue reading professionally written academic articles in the field. This course is an instance of ‘process learning’ as opposed to ‘product learning’. In that light, I think that given the amount of time, readings, revisions and re-revisions you put into this course and paper, you deserve an overall grade of an A. I am certain that you have learned from this course, and this is clearly indicated in your final outcome" Should I worried about these issues, including a handful of spelling/extra conjunction errors (e.g., categorories, ", and.")? The instructor himself didn't notice them but I'm just worried that my imperfect writing sample is gonna weaken me... Any advice? I don't know if it's too late to do corrections to this paper and then email every single place I applied a 'corrected' copy... And, frankly, I'm too tired over grad applications and research to do anything to my paper...

Grad Application's a b*tch. Get over it with chocolate and Plan C

Hello, I have a few weeks left till I have to submit my applications and their fees for MAs and PhDs in Linguistics with a concentration in Comp-Ling. And sadly, I just developed cold feet. I'm an English Language major with a minor in Comp Sci, and for some reason I'm all of a sudden confused as to whether I'll feel more comfortable going into computational linguistics or into computer science. I like the systematization and mathematical focus that computational linguistics brings to general linguistics, especially for morpho-syntax and semantics. But I also know that I like that machine and pattern-based approach on its own. I'm graduating this Spring and hopefully get accepted into a (computational) linguistics program in the States (I'm an international). But now that I'm looking at the local computer science master's programs, I don't know what I really want anymore. I just have no idea what I'll enjoy more and whether when I'm 30 or 40 (sorry for being a cliched 20-year old) I would be doing/wanting to do more of linguistics, computational linguistics, natural language processing, or algorithm/theory-oriented computer science. I crossed this over to the computer science forum.

Hello, I have a few weeks left till I have to submit my applications and their fees for MAs and PhDs in Linguistics with a concentration in Comp-Ling. And sadly, I just developed cold feet. I'm an English Language major with a minor in Comp Sci, and for some reason I'm all of a sudden confused as to whether I'll feel more comfortable going into computational linguistics or into computer science. I like the systematization and mathematical focus that computational linguistics brings to general linguistics, especially for word-structure/parsing and semantics. But I also know that I like that machine and pattern-based approach on its own. I'm graduating this Spring and hopefully get accepted into a (computational) linguistics program in the States (I'm an international). But now that I'm looking at the local computer science master's programs, I don't know what I really want anymore. I just have no idea what I'll enjoy more and whether when I'm 30 or 40 (sorry for being a cliched 20-year old) I would be doing/wanting to do more of linguistics, computational linguistics, natural language processing, or algorithm/theory-oriented computer science. I crossed this over to the linguistics forum.

Usually sites tell you what they want from an SOP. The major things that you have to mention are: the linguistic specficaliazations/areas or subfields/careers you want to do at your MA or after it 1) your background in linguistics and perhaps fields related to the subfield (aka, education, anthropology, computer science, etc.) 2) how the university and the department can meet your needs and how you can meet theirs, ie you have to know what the faculty is researching at the university and mention those researches in some way. As in, you can either just flat out say that "I want to be guided by faculty members such as X in their work on Y=Hispanic syntax" or "I want to benefit from the varied faculty at the university especially when it comes to syntax and indo-european/romance linguistics". 3) You can have some anecdotes about your life but only when it can show how good of a candidate you are, such as some information about what makes you want the field on its own (eg, you were raised around Hispanic minorities), mention academic awesome things you've had such as scholarships etc., and try to explain how some things in your application aren't that stellar (GPA or GRE) and why. I'm just an applicant now but this is what I've gathered from since Spring 2013 about all this personal statement stuff. You'll get more replies from other people but it won't be that different from what I say. You can always just ask your advisor or university writing center for drafts/copies of past personal statements. In my case I used drafts to make up my SOP for the Fulbright (which I didn't get) and then modified it slightly to make it suitable for linguistics grad schools. Good luck, you're gonna need it (like everyone else here)

I used this for my own subfield: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/programs But like telianathegreat said, you need to read the faculty profiles or just read their research keywords to know if you fit or not

Hello everybody. I'm doing this for a friend of mine. Basically, she just graduated with a degree in English linguistics and she's currently teaching ESL. She wants to apply to anthropological linguistic MAs sometime in the future and go into the whole language documentation/revitalization/education world. She used the LinguistSociety.org directory, however, she's not finding that many MAs that concentrate or specialize in that area. Of the places she's found, they're mostly upper-tier universities like Berkeley or Arizona (which are far beyond her reach; not for intelligence though, just the transcripts). She's found more Linguistic Anthropology MAs but they rely on having an anthropology BA/minor background which she doesn't have. So... Any help?

They both sound like they can be grouped under anthropo/socio linguistics, especially because both the documentation and revitalization are about Amerindian languages. You can just make perhaps two paragraphs or just one where you documentation AND revitilization of Amerindian languages; and how the first will require a good general linguistic background and the 2nd something along the lines of anthropo or socio. Any graduate program that tailors to anthropo/socio linguistics (for Amerindians or in general) is bound to have a good amount of general linguistics preparation and something along the lines of language planning. Just check the courses that your sought programs offer and see if you tile up with them.

This helped me if anyone's interested: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/programs

So.... Any updates on the funding options for the MAs?