How to become a professor in linguistics

[fuzzylogician]

Some very good advice offered by Professor Kai von Fintel (MIT). Relevant if you are applying to grad school, are in grad school, or are about to go on the job market (especially if you're in semantics, but not only). 

 

http://www.howtobecomeaprofessor.com/interviews/how-to-become-a-professor-in-linguistics/

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

The white guy keeps repeating himself and the Asian guy keeps twitching.

[fuzzylogician]

The white guy keeps repeating himself and the Asian guy keeps twitching.

 

You listened to a 20 minute interview with a successful professor who is using his spare time to give advice to early-career people such as yourself, and that's all you got out of it? That really takes some special kind of skill. 

[LinguisticMystic]

Thanks for sharing! It's like no pressure advising even if not specific to my field. It was also interesting to hear about some things that can happen to "failed linguists" since that's not talked about often.

 

Also, if watching bothers you just listen to the audio ...

[Arezoo]

It was really helpful. Thanks a million! I found out i'm not the only person who has some kinda laziness. What also captures my attention was that when admitting a person to grad school, they take into account whether that person has any other job experience that makes him choose being a scientist over being . I myself didn't want to mention having an unrelated job for a few years because i thought i have to just mention those related, but when i go back in time, i understand that those few years made me be sure that i want to teach ( which i have done since then) and do research. Another thing that i wasn't sure of was the age factor which will never be an issue to me. It was really inspiring. Thanks!

Edited July 19, 2013 by Arezoo

[Lyra Belacqua]

What also captures my attention was that when admitting a person to grad school, they take into account whether that person has any other job experience

 

Well, perhaps Kai von Fintel does when he's sitting on the admissions committee, but clearly not everyone agrees even at MIT. They accept at least a few people straight out of undergrad every year.

[Arezoo]

Well, perhaps Kai von Fintel does when he's sitting on the admissions committee, but clearly not everyone agrees even at MIT. They accept at least a few people straight out of undergrad every year.

Of course they do! As a whole, I didn't think there might be a professor at a prestigious university who is interested in late bloomers. 

[ladyling]

I didn't get the impression that other life experience was a prereq for admission, but it IS a good idea. From what I've seen, most folks who leave ling PhD programs came directly from undergrad, and I think it's largely because, as Kai says, they came to grad school in part because they hadn't considered anything else. The reverse isn't true (i.e., not everyone who comes straight from undergrad will leave grad school, or hasn't considered other options), but I do think that doing something else before grad school helps you assess whether it's really the path you {want to/should} be on.

[snarky]

This was interesting, although I thought maybe a little overly pessimistic about job opportunities outside of academia. Provided that you leave with some practical skills, e.g. a working knowledge of statistics, experimental design, and/or programming, I think it is possible to find a place in industry (granted, maybe not as easy as it would be for a computer science PhD, but easier than other humanities). In addition to law and tech, there is also speech pathology, second language acquisition, etc. Some of these might require more education, as he mentioned, but that's true of most career changes. It would definitely be a little harder, I think, to leave academia with only a knowledge of formal theories - that's definitely harder to sell to an employer...  

Edited July 22, 2013 by snarky

[fuzzylogician]

This was interesting, although I thought maybe a little overly pessimistic about job opportunities outside of academia. Provided that you leave with some practical skills, e.g. a working knowledge of statistics, experimental design, and/or programming, I think it is possible to find a place in industry (granted, maybe not as easy as it would be for a computer science PhD, but easier than other humanities). In addition to law and tech, there is also speech pathology, second language acquisition, etc. Some of these might require more education, as he mentioned, but that's true of most career changes. It would definitely be a little harder, I think, to leave academia with only a knowledge of formal theories - that's definitely harder to sell to an employer...  

 

Keep in mind that Kai is strictly a formal theory researcher. He doesn't do programming or experimental work, and moreover that kind of work has only recently started being a major part of MIT linguistics' research on a departmental level. The more applied speech pathology and 2nd language acquisition aren't really represented there at all. Kai is giving advice from his perspective of the kind he would give his own students (I heard him give very similar advice in a panel on the job market at the LSA in January), and I think it fairly accurately reflects the situation that most MIT graduates, who only do theoretical work, would be in if they left the field. It's also important to remember that people that leave the field end up having full productive lives, even if moving to a new field is not easy, so the difficulty associated with having to find a new job or career would not be a reason I would give anyone for continuing to pursue a PhD or job in academia if they no longer wanted it.

[ravenray]

I thought this was very helpful!  Thanks for posting this! 

[CawingKro]

I love it when he says it's a scientists job to NOT understand things, and to ask hard questions that said scientist may never answer. Perhaps I'm a bit wackadoodle in that I find the prospect of not understanding things exciting. If we -did- understand everything, life would be very boring, and we wouldn't need scientists in the first place!

 

On a more pragmatic note, perhaps I will take up being one of those fake mermaids in Las Vegas as a possible fallback career....

Edited August 24, 2013 by CawingKro

[beccamayworth]

I just found this post - pretty cool. Bump it up!