by Hilal Yıldırım Gündoğdu (hilal.yildirim@metu.edu.tr)
In this text, I would like to tell you about my academic journey in linguistics which my friends who are relatively at the earlier stages of this journey can relate to their own life. I believe and hope that my experiences and way of looking at searching for and finding information can be useful for them.
I had never been to Ankara before I came to this city for my university education. Thus, I had never seen METU before that time, either. However, somehow I always imagined studying at this university. I think this was due to the METU students and graduates that I’d met. They all had something in common that I admired but wasn’t able to name. I still have difficulty in describing it but all I can remember is the fact that I wanted to be a part of this group, I wanted to be one of them.
Eventually, I became a student at METU and enjoyed every lesson. We took language teaching methodology, English literature, and linguistics courses in our department and educational sciences courses offered by the faculty. All of the professors were experts in their area; therefore, there were always so much to learn from them. One of our literature professors told us during a lesson that we should have taken courses from other departments to gain different perspectives. I had enjoyed psychology courses at high school; therefore, thanks to the motivation speech by our literature professor and my interest in psychology, I enrolled in the minor program at Psychology Department when I was a 2nd year student. I realized a few years later that these courses were really useful for me because if you are interested in one scientific area, it is never limited to that particular area. It has connections with other fields. Psychology fed me in different senses, cognitive psychology helped me to learn about human brain and cognition which had connections with linguistics. Courses about personality helped me with literature. There is no need to tell the effects of psychology in language teaching and education in general. In addition to these benefits, psychology courses helped me to learn more about myself, be honest to myself, which is actually the biggest gain and I always tell this: Everyone should take at least a few courses in psychology to be able to see themselves. Most of us don’t even know our capabilities and flaws or that the problems we have are not unique to us but are actually procedural and can be overcome in some ways or by time. Moreover, to have a better insight in the world that surrounds us, I believe that we should at least have basic knowledge in different areas, not only in our major disciplines.
Until my graduation, I tried to make use of the excellent academic opportunities of METU. Moreover, I knew that graduation was not an ending point and I was sure that I wanted to have a deeper understanding in literature or linguistics. However, for a very long time, I couldn’t choose which one to focus on. In the end, I selected linguistics. It wasn’t because I enjoyed the linguistics courses more than other courses but because I was amazed by the human capability to do language and was able to imagine myself reading linguistics papers and writing my own ones even 20 years later. I realized that I wouldn’t get bored while trying to uncover the mysteries of language. I thought we could have a future together. I grasped the basic terminology not only in the linguistics courses in our department but also in the psychology courses, especially in Cognitive Psychology course, offered by the Psychology Department. I was aware that I had the basic knowledge that I could build more on.
As soon as I graduated, I started M.A. in Linguistics at Boğaziçi University. My friends who were interested in linguistics stayed at METU and studied applied linguistics in our department or started M.A. in Cognitive Science. Some of them studied theoretical linguistics at Boğaziçi University like me or they went abroad, especially to USA. During my M.A., I came across with a job announcement. One of the leading technology companies was looking for linguists for its Natural Language Processing (NLP) project for Turkish. I applied to this position but wasn’t expecting to get accepted. I just wanted to gain interview experience. In the end, I got accepted and then I told myself that there were actually a limited number of institutions in Turkey which offered a high quality education in linguistics and I graduated from two of them. Therefore, I must have been sure from the beginning that I had a high chance of getting accepted. I worked there for three years until my graduation. In the end, I gained theoretical knowledge at school and practical knowledge at work, both kinds of my experiences complemented each other and shaped my academic profile. Today, I am a Ph.D. student at METU. I am studying at Language Studies track. I returned home in a sense. I tell you about my academic and professional history because I would like to show you that linguistics has various extensions from theoretical linguistics to computational linguistics, and so on. If you’re more interested in human and machine interaction, you might consider a career in computational linguistics. Initially you might take online courses or audit some computer engineering classes to have an idea about what NLP is and learn a programming language. Then, you can find a program that fits your academic goals especially in Europe and USA. If you are more into language and brain, you may consider a career in cognitive linguistics, neurolinguistics, etc. There are programs in Turkey and abroad. If you are more interested in theory, you might deal with theoretical linguistics or if you want to apply theory into language education, you can focus on applied linguistics, and so on. If you realize that you are interested in linguistics but haven’t decided what to focus on yet during your B.A., don’t worry because I think what we learn during B.A. is never enough for us to make a decision that is not going to change forever. You just learn about the fundamentals during B.A. and based on my experience, you shape your future depending on your M.A. studies and your work during this period. But of course, this doesn’t mean B.A. doesn’t matter, it matters, my point is please try to grasp everything you can during B.A. while you have the opportunity and more time that you can spend in the campus.
For my friends who are at the beginning their wonderful and enjoyable academic journey, I recommend them becoming aware of the excellent academic sources they are surrounded by and making use of every piece of it without any prejudice against an area. I suggest them to trust their professors and give their courses a chance. Don’t tell that you hate a particular course without actively participating in at least one session and working with full concentration on at least one homework (well, actually don’t hate anything you have no idea about, that is not what smart people do, rather try to learn about what you hate). There had been many times when some of my classmates hadn’t wanted to take linguistics courses at all, they’d thought these courses had been unnecessary for English language teacher candidates and they’d had difficulty in these courses because of their prejudice. Once one our linguistics professors told us it’s not rocket science. It might seem hard and it is hard but not harder than any other area. Devote your time and energy on the course and decide if you are interested or not interested at all after some trials. Every course has its own dynamics, play this academic game according to its rules that are told very clearly to you at the beginning of each course on its syllabus and in the end, your experiences and knowledge will guide you along the way of choosing what to devote the rest of your life to. The same linguistics professor again told the following particularly for syntax and I change it here for linguistics in general (it can actually apply to anything): Linguistics is hard unless you find it fun!
It is a wonderful journey, enjoy every step of it!
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