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Alicia

Linguistics

I chose Linguistics at Jesus College, having really enjoyed English Language at A-Level, because I wanted to study topics like child language acquisition and the history of the English language in greater depth. The Linguistics course more than lived up to my expectations; there are so many more areas to study than you realise when you first apply. I especially enjoyed conducting my own experiments in the phonetics lab – it was great to be able to learn practical, as well as theoretical, aspects of Linguistics.

My final year dissertation was about how morphology affects the visual recognition of jumbled words. I originally got the idea from an internet meme, and then found that there was in fact quite a lot of research around the subject. I have since worked for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and for Google, using my linguistics expertise and the general skills that I gained from my degree – researching, writing clearly and concisely, organising my time, and attention to detail. Being a linguistic pedant is useful when your job involves proofreading!

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