Will a degree in a humanities subject help me find good paying work? (apply, average)
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Linguistics is a little different from the average concentration in the humanities. If you come out of college speaking three or four languages fluently, operationalizing your linguistics background, then that'll help you find good-paying work. If you just come out of college understanding linguistics pedantically, or perhaps being able to combine your linguistics background with some low-level capabilities to understand, read, and speak other languages, then that probably would not help you get good-paying work.
Linguistics is not really humanities once you get into the core of it - it is much more like a health science/hard science. You start out in 1st year with simple stuff like learning about languages (the difference between romance languages and germanic languages, inflections, syntax, whatever), and then by 3rd and 4th year, you are working in-depth with detailed human physiology, speech pathology, small subsections of morphology, etc. Yes, there is a lot of learning about things like the evolution of the English language, but it's much more science than people think. History is history, linguistics is linguistics, they are not really the same thing although they overlap in some points (but only as a background).
If you can qualify as a speech language therapist, you can get a good job in hospitals or schools - but this may require graduate study, depending on your location.
I discovered I hate EET yet I love geography and history, and I have figured I need to go to college if I want to make more than a menial living.
Will having a 2 or 4 year degree in a subject like linguistics help me even if I am not able to get a job relevant to my field?
Linguistics is pretty useless, unless it's applied linguistics (teaching ESL). With graduate study you can teach adults and college students, and speech pathology is usually a different major or requires graduate study.
Can you make a good living with a linguistics degree, yes, just as you can with geography and history. It comes down to you being able to apply yourself both in college, and after. YOU can make a living using an education in these fields, just don't expect the degree to do it for you. Even with a degree in EET, the degree won't do it for you.
You can make a good living with a geography degree if you concentrate on geographic information systems. If you learn a foreign language that the federal government needs, then you might be able to land a federal job.
Linguistics is a little different from the average concentration in the humanities. If you come out of college speaking three or four languages fluently, operationalizing your linguistics background, then that'll help you find good-paying work. If you just come out of college understanding linguistics pedantically, or perhaps being able to combine your linguistics background with some low-level capabilities to understand, read, and speak other languages, then that probably would not help you get good-paying work.
Linguistics is not the study/learning of a lot of languages "fluently." It is the study OF languages, how they work, how they developed, how they are related, parsing meaning, how various language families are structured, etc. It is possible to acquire a degree in linguistics and never learn to communicate competently in foreign languages. Linguistics majors learn ABOUT languages; they do not necessarily learn languages.
A degree in linguistics in of itself may work for getting a job in academia, teaching or some parts of the federal government. Overall, it is not a very marketable degree to be quite honest. If you have really good fluency in a foreign language that is in demand, that is more nocticable to some employers in my opinion.
I think finding a career you are interested in then finding out what you need to do to get there is probably a better idea than just picking a major you like. I think speech language pathology can be a good career path, but I believe you need a master's. GIS or urban planning can be a good direction to go with a geography degree.
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