Student Support

Events list

The Linguistics Department maintains a mailing list for events, opportunities, and announcements relevant to Tri-Co linguistics students.  Typical messages include job and research opportunities (on and off campus), linguistics talks (on and off campus), and other department events.  It's a great way to stay up to date on department goings-on!

We strive to include all students with an interest in linguistics on this list.  If you'd like to be on the list, just let us know by contacting linguistics@swarthmore.edu.  You can adjust the frequency of emails or unsubscribe at any time.

Resources across the Tri-Co

Linguistics students at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore interact with their campuses in slightly different ways.  We've assembled a collection of student resources at all three colleges to help students find campus-specific support they might need.

The mission of the Bryn Mawr College Transportation Department is to link the Tri-College Community of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges by providing professional, safe and timely transportation. The Tri-Co Van is available to all Tri-Co students.

Advising

Incoming first-years who express an interest in linguistics often are matched to a linguistics professor for pre-major advising.  If you're interested in or curious about linguistics, you should always feel free to reach out to any of our faculty!

It's strongly recommended that students discuss their course enrollment each semester with their advisor.  More information about what sorts of things an advisor can help with is available from the Office of Academic Success: here and here.  Please feel free to come to your linguistics advisors with questions or concerns about anything—we're here to help!

In the second semester of their second year, students go through "sophomore planning", where they map out their plan for their major(s) and any minors.  This plan is not something we will hold you to, but it shows us that you understand the requirements of our major or minor and have a way to complete them.

While we cannot plan precisely too far in advance, our course offerings page provides a sense of some of the courses we'll offer over the next year or two.  As a general rule of thumb, a course that meets each major requirement is offered every semester, and second-level courses (e.g. Syntax II, Phonology II, etc.) are offered at least once every two years.  Other electives are offered frequently based on faculty availability and student interest (so express your interest!).  If you plan to major or minor in linguistics, please see our page on our academic program.  If you have any questions about our course offerings or degree requirements, please be in touch!

Once a major or minor is declared, you will be assigned an advisor in the department.  This advisor will be available to help you through the remaining requirements of your degree.

If you are writing a thesis in linguistics, you will be assigned an additional advisor who will support you in that process, and will be your instructor in the thesis seminar.  This person may be the same or different as your academic advisor.

Engaging in Research and Teaching

Various faculty members in the Linguistics Department involve students in their research activities.  These are usually paid hourly positions.  Opportunities to be involved are often advertised on the events mailing list, but you can always reach out to individual faculty to ask what opportunities they might be aware of.

Summer research opportunities are also available with various Linguistics faculty.  These will be advertised in various ways, including on the Social Sciences Division Summer Research Opportunities page and on the Linguistics events mailing list.  The deadline to apply for many of these opportunities is around early February (see the College's page on Summer Opportunities).  You may also reach out to individual faculty to see if there are any opportunities that they might be able to connect you to.

Linguistics faculty also often hire students to support their teaching (teaching assistants, course assistants, and graders).  Sometimes faculty advertise on the events mailing list, and other times faculty reach out to a student or students who have taken the course before.  Students should always feel free to let faculty members know of their interest to be involved in this way.

Who to contact

While your advisor is a good point of contact in the department, please feel free to reach out to any department faculty, the chair of the department, or the administrative assistant.  We are all here to support you!

Anonymous feedback

While we always strive to do our best by students, we recognise that we sometimes fall short of this goal.

There is a Google form for submitting feedback to the department anonymously.  You may use this form to provide any sort of feedback, whether it's related to one of your classes, to an interaction you had, or to a larger issue.  Any feedback submitted here will be read by the Swarthmore and BiCo chairs.

To avoid spam, a link to this form is not posted publicly on the internet.  The link is included in the footer of all messages from the Linguistics Events mailing list, and is posted publicly on a bulletin board in Pearson Hall (Swarthmore).