Life after University as a Linguistics Student?
More of the popular courses at Warwick tend to center around the natural sciences and mathematics fields. I can’t recall exactly how many Warwick students that I have met, that when asked about what they were studying, would reply with: PPE, MORSE, Economics, Mathematics, Engineering, Physics, the list goes on. During my time at secondary school, never would I have imagined myself studying such a specific course- Language, Culture and Communication.
As a student within the humanities field, one of my biggest concerns after graduating university is finding a stable career in which I can apply the knowledge and skills I learned through the duration of my course. Career wise, the humanities field is a very wide and diverse area to delve into. Many students who study courses that fall within the social sciences and humanities oriented fields, when asked whether or not they know exactly what career path they want to pursue after University, for the most part they do not know. Personally during secondary school, the natural sciences and mathematics subjects were never strengths of mine and I tended to gravitate and took an interest in the areas of the social sciences field like history and psychology. Law initially was a course I had considered taking but when I pictured myself practicing as a lawyer in the future, I could not see myself in the career path. When up reading up on the Language, Culture and Communication course in the Centre for Applied Linguistics the overall description of the course sounded very appealing to me, especially in terms of pursuing an international career in multicultural contexts. Warwick is a perfect place for this course to be put into motion because of the general diversity of the student population and faculty with so many opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures.
In order to expose myself to the various opportunities that the skills I am learning in my modules could benefit me, I took on the on campus part time job as a student caller. After joining the spring campaign I have realised the importance of being able to effectively communicate with a wide array of people. This especially is present during the moments when I am faced with a difficult call, and also to be able build a case for support that presents Warwick’s philanthropic efforts and projects in a very positive light. This involves being capable of communicating and presenting the aims of projects in a clear succinct way that persuades the constituents to donate to a cause is also another skill which I am able to utilise from my course.
Overall my words of advice for future freshers or other first years who are also uncertain about what they will end up pursuing after university, is to just try different things and get involved with different societies and opportunities that the university provides. By trying different things, somewhere along the path you will be able to identify where your passion and strengths lie and from there things should eventually fall into place.
