Despite the 2020-2021 school year being incredibly unusual, our undergrads have been no less active than usual in the realms of research, achievement, and connecting with one another and the linguistics community. Our undergrads have a great deal to be proud of, so we wanted to highlight some of their achievements and activities here.
Mentorship Program
As highlighted in last semester’s newsletter, this year we kicked off a mentorship program, connecting a graduate student with undergraduates interested in similar topics. These groups have been meeting throughout the year, supporting one another and building friendships as well as academic relationships. Some groups have even met in person for outdoor hang-outs!
Book Club
Six undergrads, along with the Undergraduate Program Coordinator Julie McGory, have started a book club. This semester they read Lexicon by Max Barry, and met periodically via zoom throughout the semester to discuss it.
Underlings
The Underlings, the undergraduate linguistics club, has been quite active this semester as well. They hosted a guest speaker on April 15, 2021. The guest speaker was Dr. Joseph Windsor, an experienced conlanger (creator of constructed languages), linguistics professor, and the president of the Language Creation Society. They also have been involved in creating a linguistics club at Metro High School.
Denman Undergraduate Research Forum
Several students, including Nick Bednar, Anna Taylor, Kyle Maycock, and Grace LeFevre, presented at the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum this year. Students who are scheduled to graduate in 2021 were eligible to apply for a presentation slot, after which participants were selected and divided into 21 categories based on their field of research. Each category had its own Zoom session, in which the presenters had 7 minutes to present their research poster and 3 minutes to answer questions from the audience. The four linguistics students were in the category “Language Development and Understanding”, in which Grace LeFevre was awarded second place for her presentation. Grace presented her thesis research, in which she developed a method to quantify inflection class structure in Spanish verbs. More information about this forum can be found here.
COSI's Science Festival
Between May 5th and 8th, COSI will host its annual Spring Science Festival, at which some linguistics undergraduates will participate in an outreach event. Kenna Miller and Rebekah Stanhope, for example, have created a video demonstrating the "McGurk Effect", which is an auditory illusion in which the auditory component of a sound is heard along with the visual component of a different sound, leading to the perception of the latter. More information can be found here.
Career Panel: Life Beyond Degree
On April 1st, ASC Career Services hosted a virtual career panel for linguistics students, in which six alumni who are all now involved in linguistics-related fields shared their experiences and advice for finding positions related to language and linguistics after graduation. The panelists were:
- Nadia El-Youseph, Graduate Clinician, The Ohio State University, Department of Speech & Hearing Science
- Andrea Gutman Fuentes, Pursuing a Dual Master’s Degree in Library Science and History
- Susan L. Hura, PhD, Director of Conversation Design Services, Interactions LLC
- Meesha Meksin, Project Manager for the Center for Teaching and Learning
- Amy Jo Oswalt, Head of the Elementary Division for the Lab School of Washington
- Tyler Tomaszewski, Solutions Manager, Translation Services JPMorgan Chase & Co.