Undergraduate Program: Majoring in Linguistics at Cornell
The undergraduate linguistics
program at Cornell provides students with an opportunity to learn about the
scientific study of human language in one of the most distinguished linguistics departments in the country. Although Cornell is a large university, the relatively small size of our
undergraduate program (40+ majors and 15 faculty members) allows students to
enjoy small class sizes and close
interaction with faculty members. Our undergraduate majors typically enjoy individual attention of a sort often not available in larger departments.
The undergraduate program offers students solid training not only in all major areas of theoretical linguistics—phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics—but also in historical linguistics and computational linguistics. Our faculty's language area interests range from Indo-European languages (Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Slavic) to Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and Cheyenne. Undergraduate students have opportunities to work directly with faculty on original independent research projects as well as to get hands-on research experience through participating in faculty and graduate students' various research projects. Many of our undergraduate majors write honors theses. Visit "Honors Program" to learn more.
Linguistics
majors are also encouraged to develop programs of study which focus on
individual areas of special interest, combining the major with a related discipline, such as anthropology, computer
science, philosophy, or psychology.
The Department of Linguistics does not handle undergraduate admissions. Those who are interested in majoring in Linguistics at Cornell should apply to the University directly. The linguistics major is hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences.
