Since this is so far from your life, what would the Mr. Verb version be? "I got a 'A' on my intro to linguistics midterm and now I want to go to MIT to work with Noam Chomsky"
Well, no. I see this from the faculty perspective. When students come to talk about grad school or the profession, it's people I've talked to and worked with extensively outside of class. We and our students aren't struggling to say something new about well-worn subjects, like in the video, but trying to decide which of a million different new kinds of data to gather and which of several new ways are best to use to analyze it. It's an incredibly exciting time to be doing linguistics for that kind of reason.
One point in the video does have to be made: Getting a PhD isn't an automatic road to an academic job. If you get a PhD in linguistics (or closely allied fields), it's cool to work toward an academic job, but you need to be doing it because you are really into it and want to do it. Our people are getting jobs, even academic ones for the people who want them, but it takes serious work these days.
It's very far. At least as far as East Berlin was from West Berlin in the old days. I've got no day visa and know that the guards will shoot if I look hard.
"omg, how did I only just learn about Mr. Verb?" — Lauren, Dec. 9, '08
"Mr. Verb and his minions, few though there seem to be, dislike reading, or dislike reading carefully." — Robert Hartwell Fiske, editor and publisher, The Vocabula Review
7 comments:
I think I'm missing something.... unless it's the title of the post that's the joke?
Ah, I see -- the flash was broken in my browser. Sorry for the false alarm.
I'm relieved!
Since this is so far from your life, what would the Mr. Verb version be? "I got a 'A' on my intro to linguistics midterm and now I want to go to MIT to work with Noam Chomsky"
Well, no. I see this from the faculty perspective. When students come to talk about grad school or the profession, it's people I've talked to and worked with extensively outside of class. We and our students aren't struggling to say something new about well-worn subjects, like in the video, but trying to decide which of a million different new kinds of data to gather and which of several new ways are best to use to analyze it. It's an incredibly exciting time to be doing linguistics for that kind of reason.
One point in the video does have to be made: Getting a PhD isn't an automatic road to an academic job. If you get a PhD in linguistics (or closely allied fields), it's cool to work toward an academic job, but you need to be doing it because you are really into it and want to do it. Our people are getting jobs, even academic ones for the people who want them, but it takes serious work these days.
Since when does "just down the hall from my office" qualify as "far from my life"?
It's very far. At least as far as East Berlin was from West Berlin in the old days. I've got no day visa and know that the guards will shoot if I look hard.
Post a Comment