Puffer Fish Posted November 8, 2016 Posted November 8, 2016 (edited) Hi everyone, new to this subforum, sorry if this has been asked like 3000 times. I'm considering trying to get into computational linguistics (planning to take an intro compsci course this coming spring regardless). I'm currently trying to apply to speech-pathology schools but if/when I don't get in this year I am moving on to do something else and compling sounds like my nerd dream come true. However, I feel like my past is the thing stopping me from getting in. My undergrad GPA was 3.07; my best GRE scores are 163V, 152Q, 3.5AW (AW may go up, just took it recently and those scores aren't up yet). My leveling courses for speech had a GPA of 3.34 but they are mostly irrelevant for this field. I know compling will be very challenging for me since up until now my brain hasn't liked numbers/math very much but I know if I apply myself and don't go in thinking 'I'm bad at math' I'll learn a lot better and maybe even be good at it. I've kicked my depression's butt to boot, so I know i can get work done now and succeed and improve on my past grades. How can I start now to prove this to adcomms when I apply next year? (I'm mostly looking at UW's online program, but I also know I don't learn well online-only, so...) Thanks in advance! Edited November 8, 2016 by Puffer Fish School info
Jaccard Posted November 9, 2016 Posted November 9, 2016 Hi Puffer Fish, I'm definitely not an expert, but reading your post only one big question comes to my mind: why computational linguistics? Did you take a course, do you have programming experience? From what I know the UW's program is not easy to get into and they expect you to have taken (at least) some courses in programming, statistics, etc. Maybe you could look at some MOOC's and see if you can find a computational linguistics course (for example, this general introduction to NLP: https://www.coursera.org/learn/natural-language-processing)? That way you cant test whether you like it *and* whether you think you'll be able to do it. Also - if you decide to apply next year - it might help to show that you are motivated Good luck!
Puffer Fish Posted November 9, 2016 Author Posted November 9, 2016 (edited) 42 minutes ago, Jaccard said: Hi Puffer Fish, I'm definitely not an expert, but reading your post only one big question comes to my mind: why computational linguistics? Did you take a course, do you have programming experience? From what I know the UW's program is not easy to get into and they expect you to have taken (at least) some courses in programming, statistics, etc. Maybe you could look at some MOOC's and see if you can find a computational linguistics course (for example, this general introduction to NLP: https://www.coursera.org/learn/natural-language-processing)? That way you cant test whether you like it *and* whether you think you'll be able to do it. Also - if you decide to apply next year - it might help to show that you are motivated Good luck! 1: I haven't done my research on this yet, I admit. Compling sounds great because I've always wanted to have a practical use for my linguistics skills (though I know there aren't many used and it's more comp than ling), and I've mulled the idea of going into computers/IT/etc for about 8 years now. I don't know how to explain it but for what I know now it just makes sense somehow. And the longer I shadow with speech pathology the more I realize I'm not cut out for that kind of thing after all. 2: I know next to nothing about the UW program other than what's on their website. I don't know their admissions rates, their preferred kind of students/grades/etc., anything. I don't know any other schools that offer this and offer it online as well. 3: That's an excellent idea! Would you recommend I do it before or after my intro compsci class? Cause right now I have lots of linguistics background from my ling major and literally zero compsci background other than the forum <html> I taught myself in 5th grade and probably don't remember any of. (EDIT: I see now that the thing you linked recommends compsci experience. I'll save it for later then) Edited November 9, 2016 by Puffer Fish
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