Dinali

Ah well. So much for predictions!

I have a feeling there'll be a round of announcement sent out as it approaches 5pm in the various time zones. I think they like to send them at the end of the day Friday then skedaddle so they don't have to deal with the inevitable flood of emails and calls until Monday, when everyone has calmed down a bit. At least that would be my reasoning if I were tasked with sending out rejections.

Totally. I wish all the schools would get together and agree on some kind of universal application/notification portal. It seems odd that we're all endeavoring to join the ranks of the pioneers in our respective fields yet the system for getting there has changed little in the last five centuries.

Congrats! (assuming your news is good) No emails here yet, and online still says no decision : (

I already looked into this. Apparently you can't just join, you have to be born in. Dammit.

I think the disconnect may be due to different interpretations of what exactly "computational linguistics" is. I have understood a very narrow definition of comp ling as being specifically and almost solely concerned with NLP, to the point where the terms are almost interchangeable. When you say: That doesn't fit in with what I was talking about. So to clear it up, I'm all for the extensive use of computers to augment research in all fields. I'm not particularly interested in NLP as a specialty (or in fact at all), for the reasons I discussed previously.

Sure you can! In fact, I encourage it. I love to hear different perspectives on it, particularly if someone has it has a specialty. My impression of career opportunities is from years of reading the job postings on the Linguist List and on other job boards. Once you discount the erroneously named translator jobs that the military calls linguists, the kinds of jobs I mentioned have comprised the largest non-academic job segment in linguistics, while academic opportunities for comp ling are relatively scarce and comparatively underpaid.

Yeah. I figured I'd have done at least a lot better, but you know how they give you two sections, and one's experimental and the other counts, but you don't know which is which and you don't know whether the two will be Qual or Quant? I got two Quant sections, and I'm certain the one that counted was the second, because some of the questions on the first were crazy stuff I'd never even heard off, while all the questions on the second were practically straight out of the book. But by then I was completely wiped out and was making all kinds of simple mistakes that I recognized immediately afterwards, but couldn't stop doing. In any case, I think it wasn't bad enough to knock me right out, because I've actually only gotten one actual rejection. If I was auto-rejected by a system, I'd have heard already. I'm plenty worried about universal rejections, but I'm certain that they'll at least all come from an actual person.

Pangor-ban, your history sounds awesome to me. I think we could totally hang out. I studied Japanese and French as an undergrad, eventually doing a French minor and a year abroad in France. (I also have some strong pedogogical opinions on the way French is taught in most programs in the US stemming from that experience.) Historical Linguistics was how I first learned about ling. I see no reason why you can't do research in the field, even if you specialize in one of the more mainstream subjects. Russell Schuh and Pam Munro at UCLA both do that. I also knew a history grad student who collaborated with the linguistics department and used the pattern of borrowings of the words among Nilotic languages to trace migration patterns in the region back 700 years earlier than the pottery record allowed (or something like that. It's been awhile since I read the study). So that was a cool and useful contribution to two different fields. But on the subject of Celtic languages, would you mind sharing more about your experience in Wales? Early on I was seriously considering specializing or even majoring in Celtic studies, particularly Irish. I have some Irish speakers in my family. I never learned more than a few phrases, since I grew up apart from that side, but it's something I've always felt worth revisiting. Do you know of any similar programs to the one you did that are in Ireland? Feel free to IM or PM as well. Thanks

Well, my qualitative was 800, and my combined score is substantially below paigemont's, so you can estimate where my math score is. I can't, of course, not without a calculator In my defense, it was still the '90s when I had my last college-level math course.

Mom said, "GTFO."

Man, when I see what you guys think is mid-range for the GRE my stomach turns into knots again. Maybe I'm not getting in anywhere because of my math GRE score. Crap

Well, you can make quite a bit of money outside of academia with it, but you'll end up working on improving AVRs so some company can lay off another call center, programming systems to monitor the market for banks and stockbrokers, or programming spy systems to monitor voice communications for terrorist keywords. Despite the money, at the end of the day those are jobs at a computer in a pit. Too much office and not enough research. If you're a computer programmer and you like your job but want to boost your income bracket, it's a great choice. For a scientist, however dedicated to research you are, if you're looking at an academic post offering 36k, and some company or government is offering 160k, can you resist? Actually, I'm rereading that last line there and reconsidering my specialty. It would be nice not to be broke. You really have to be a top-notch programmer above all though.

France.

When I was an undergrad I rented a room from a grad student who had done exactly that. I have a feeling my rent paid more than half of the mortgage. It does seem like a good idea if you're going to be in a place where you know you'll always be able to find a renter.

It's a personal thing and wouldn't apply to anyone else.

Absolutely I do. The $120 I paid buys me a reason at the very least. Not giving reasons just contributes to the shroud of mystery surrounding this medieval process. Not giving a reason just keeps me from improving my apps for next year, and the only purpose for that would be if they really want to keep me out of the field entirely. If I'm not a good fit there, let me know; I'll be more careful about next year's locations. No funding? I'll search more strenuously for external funding next year. GRE too low? I'll take a class and do it again. But no explanation? I'll just be making the same mistakes next year. How does that benefit anyone involved?

[sorry, but I deleted the post you responded to. I can only afford to feel sorry for myself a few minutes a day] I think it's all around just a bad year not to have a perfect application, with dried up funding and the increased number of applicants. Add to that the fact that all Ling departments are tiny to start with, and that there's no MA to take up the slack for the not-so-perfect apps, and you've got about 2-5 admits per school (where in a bumper year you'd still only have 5-10!). Even with all that, I'm still surprised at how competetive it is. I mean, how many Ling majors are there? I've never met a single other one outside of school. UCLA's department is one of the biggest in the country, and I graduated in a class of about 12 "pure" ling majors. I would have thought there'd be room for everybody. It's not exactly a "default" degree, like history or English. The very fact that you want to do Linguistics as a career probably indicates a capacity to. Anyway, good luck to you. Your Santa Cruz plan sounds like a good one (although I can't stand the town, one reason I didn't apply there).

Funny to me in a sad way. The same sad way that more people know about astrology than astronomy.

Yeah, distributed morphology is a bear. I spent almost half a quarter studying it in a syntax class though, so that'll tell you where IT lies at least. On another subject, I've had this conversation too many times: "I'm particularly interested in phonology." "Wait, what? You mean . . . analyzing the bumps on people's heads?" At that point I have to just say yes and offer to do a reading.

Wow, that is a whole mess of acceptances. I wish I had your problems! Congrats on all those places, and with that line-up to choose from, who cares about Rutgers?

The bad part is that I know exactly where I screwed up. I found out a lot of things recently that I wish I had learned prior to December 15. That means that next year I'll have the ability to put together an awesome application, but I don't know if I'll have the motivational or financial resources to do it again. This year's applications cost me roughly 12% of my annual net income. Sigh

There's always hope. That's what's keeping me going. And if not, there's next year, with a firmed resolve and time to craft the ideal scholarly persona to present to these schools. I've got a thing for history too. I almost double-majored in it, but while in undergrad they lowered the max units permitted before getting a degree and at the same time raised the number of units each course was worth, essentially ending the possibility of double-majoring (without explicitly codifying it). I was pissed, especially since I was about halfway through the UD history requirements.

It has a name at Rutgers, but I'm pretty sure the concept is alive and well at every institution that has ever existed. I bet occasionally Socrates would point at one of his wealthy young sycophants and say "sorry, you're not registered." "But it's three weeks in! I've been here every day!" "Leave. Leave now, or I'll subvert you to new gods!"

Immature? Maybe. Understandable? Yes. Man that would burn me up too. "Screw you, and while we're at it, tell us how we're doing. Enough lube?"