Linguistics Career Resources

Using your linguistics degree to find the right career

• The Husky Experience for Linguistics: Translating your degree into career-relevant skills

• Linguistics Learning Goals and how they relate to many careers
• Linguistics Courses

• Ideas for Careers (or 'What can I do with a major in linguistics?')

General tips for finding careers

UW has a number of resources set up to help you find careers, so you should start at the following places:

• HuskyJobs: Online database of internships and jobs. You will need to create a profile using your UW ID (www.careers.uw.edu/huskyjobs)
• Career Center: Recruiting and career events. You can visit in-person or online (MGH; www.careers.uw.edu/calendar)
• Center for Experiential Learning and Diversity: In-person or online (MGH 171; www.washington.edu/carlson)

Linguistics Internship Resources

The Importance of Internships

Internships can help you:

• Explore career interests, occupations, and work environments
• Apply classroom knowledge and theory
• Learn new skills and refine the skills that you already have
• Expand your experience and enhance your resume
• Make contacts (coworkers, supervisors, mentors)
• Increase your chances of receiving job offers sooner rather than later

Ideas for Linguistics Internships

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that there are relatively few internships/jobs that specifically mention ‘linguistics.’ Linguistics is a broad field covering a wide range of possibilities; many employers are looking for people with exactly the type of practical skills that you learn as a linguist.

Try searching for smaller ‘subfields’:

• Computational Linguistics
• Translation/Language Specialists
• Language Teaching
• Language Policy
• Language Documentation or Revitalization
• Language Assessment
• Publishing/Writing/Editing
• Government
• Non-Profit Organizations

Finding an Internship

General Tips

UW has a number of resources set up to help you find internships, so you should start at the following places:

• HuskyJobs: Online database of internships and jobs. You will need to create a profile using your UW ID (www.careers.uw.edu/huskyjobs)
• Career Center: Recruiting and career events. You can visit in-person or online (MGH; www.careers.uw.edu/calendar)
• Center for Experiential Learning and Diversity: In-person or online (MGH 171; www.washington.edu/carlson)

You should also begin networking!

• www.linkedin.com; www.iloveseattle.org

Linguistics Internships – Some Sample Links

The following is a non-exhaustive list of links to organizations that offer linguistics internships or other similar opportunities. While the department cannot vouch for these individual positions, these are a great way to get started in your search.

• Computational linguistics
  • USC Institute for Creative Technologies
  • USC Informational Sciences Institute
  • Linguistics Data Consortium
• Translation
  
  • United Nations Language Outreach
• Language Teaching: there are many options to teach English overseas
• Language Policy
  
  • Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC
  • It is also good to look into other types of organizations that focus on policy, even if the program is not specifically linguistics-oriented. See tips on creating and proposing an internship.
• Language Documentation/Revitalization
• Government:
  
  • CIA
  • NSA
  • State Department
• Assessment
  
  • ETS

Career and Internship Fairs

The Career Center offers a wide variety of workshops to help you succeed at Career Fairs and in other steps of the application process. Visit the their overview of online and in-person workshops.

Tips for Career Fairs

• Come prepared – look at companies ahead of time and familiarize yourself with the ones that interest you
• Have an ‘elevator speech’ prepared; there are many resources online with suggestions for preparing one
• Dress for what you want to do; business casual is a good default
• Bring resumes; consider attending a resume workshop
• Visit the UW Career Center for upcoming Career Fairs and Events