Wide varieties in Job Opportunities
The breadth of Linguistics study provides our graduates with the knowledge and skills to excel in the current job market. Our students become teachers, Speech Language Pathologists, tech workers, researchers, authors, lawyers, and more both in the United States and abroad. Linguistics students have taken their analytical skills to a variety of industries on every major continent.
Students can also earn a certificate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) as a starting point for careers in language teaching. A Linguistics major also provides an excellent background for many other careers, including speech language pathology, law, data science and technology.
Alumni Testimonials
“Studying linguistics at UO was an incredible experience that had a huge impact on what I wanted to do after graduation. I came into college already interested in language, but I wasn't sure whether I wanted to pursue linguistics beyond my undergraduate degree until I joined the Speech & Language Lab at the end of my freshman year. Working in the lab made me fall in love with research, and the hands-on experience helped me discover my interest in disfluency and speech production. I was able to develop this interest into an honors thesis on speech planning and the distribution of uhs and ums in spontaneous speech. Working on this project, being a part of the linguistics community at UO, and learning from UO faculty prepared me for graduate school. I'm now pursuing a PhD in Linguistics at McGill University in Montreal, where I'm able to continue building on the research that I started at UO.”
Bess Frerichs, BA in Linguistics, '26, currently pursuing a PhD in Linguistics
“After I graduated from UO, I went on to get my PhD in linguistics at UC Davis. I currently work as a data scientist for the Research in Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, and Systems (RAILS) team at Vail Systems in Chicago. My path in linguistics started at University of Oregon and it is safe to say that I would not be where I am today had it not been for the professors who gave me their time and support. I am very proud to be able to call myself a University of Oregon alumnus."
—Zachary Houghton, BA in Linguistics, '19, currently a Principal Data Scientist
“The UO Linguistics Department incorporates research into courses and student experiences for a well-rounded education. As an undergraduate research assistant (RA) and UO Linguistics honors thesis student, I have actively participated in or independently executed all parts of the research process. I have been a RA in Melissa Baese-Berk’s Speech Perception and Production Lab (SPP Lab) since my freshman year. There, I have worked on a variety of projects, including a grant investigating the complex connection between linguistic perception and production and how learners acquire the ability to produce and discriminate between unfamiliar sounds. I have also worked as a RA with Doris Payne documenting two languages in Latin America for preservation, archival, and later study.”
Tillena Trebon, BA in Linguistics, ‘22