I’m in my early 20s with an undergraduate degree in Linguistics . I picked that as my major because for a brief period I thought I wanted to be an actual academic linguist—but as I learned more about the field and that part of academia, I realized it didn’t appeal to me, and on top of that it has low impact. I enjoyed the STEM related parts of Linguistics the most in college (neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational, etc.), but my training in those areas was haphazard and not at the level I’d need to get a job in those fields. My instinct now would be to pivot into something quantitative, but I lack the skills. I’m wondering if I should attempt to self-teach in these areas (which might be difficult, given that I work) to build career capital, or if it would be worth taking on debt to do a higher degree in a field like engineering? I’m wary of doing another few years of school without a very specific aim in mind.
I’m yet another person who pivoted from having a linguistics degree to doing software development as a job—a relatively common path. (In between I tried to be a musician.) The transition was relatively easy: I did a 4-month bootcamp (Makers, London) in 2019. I think it’s much easier to go the bootcamp route than the self-teaching route (assuming the bootcamp is good quality), because it’s full-time, focuses on practical skills, and is verifiable by employers. (Also, they had a careers coach, and a money-back-if-you-don’t-get-a-job guarantee, both of which helped.) It was much easier to be accepted onto a bootcamp than I originally assumed (I thought I’d have to spend months to years preparing for it, but that was totally wrong—just had to complete an online course).
I’m in my early 20s with an undergraduate degree in Linguistics . I picked that as my major because for a brief period I thought I wanted to be an actual academic linguist—but as I learned more about the field and that part of academia, I realized it didn’t appeal to me, and on top of that it has low impact. I enjoyed the STEM related parts of Linguistics the most in college (neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational, etc.), but my training in those areas was haphazard and not at the level I’d need to get a job in those fields. My instinct now would be to pivot into something quantitative, but I lack the skills. I’m wondering if I should attempt to self-teach in these areas (which might be difficult, given that I work) to build career capital, or if it would be worth taking on debt to do a higher degree in a field like engineering? I’m wary of doing another few years of school without a very specific aim in mind.
I’m yet another person who pivoted from having a linguistics degree to doing software development as a job—a relatively common path. (In between I tried to be a musician.) The transition was relatively easy: I did a 4-month bootcamp (Makers, London) in 2019. I think it’s much easier to go the bootcamp route than the self-teaching route (assuming the bootcamp is good quality), because it’s full-time, focuses on practical skills, and is verifiable by employers. (Also, they had a careers coach, and a money-back-if-you-don’t-get-a-job guarantee, both of which helped.) It was much easier to be accepted onto a bootcamp than I originally assumed (I thought I’d have to spend months to years preparing for it, but that was totally wrong—just had to complete an online course).
Hi, I did a minor in linguistics and enjoyed it. I also considered becoming an academic linguist but decided against it like you.
In case you haven’t seen it, 80,000 Hours has some advice on how to try out software engineering at https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/software-engineering/. The “Next steps” section has a good summary on some options.