Declaration and Orientation

You should formally declare your major as early as possible in your academic career. Why? Doing so will mean you get helpful advising. It will require you to plan out all the courses of the major. This means you will know you have time to meet all the necessary requirements for Linguistics or Language Studies before you graduate.

The declaration process works like this:

• Print a Petition for Major/Minor Declaration and a UCSC Academic Planning Form. Both of these forms are available for download here.

• Attend one of the department’s Declaration and Orientation Meetings. Schedule, location, and sign-up sheets are posted outside Stevenson 241.

Please sign up well in advance, as these meetings tend to fill quickly. You will need to complete your Petition for Major/Minor Declaration prior to the meeting, but can leave your UCSC Academic Planning Form blank. Bring both to the meeting. Major Declaration Worksheets are useful resources, which you may want to look over prior to the meeting. You can find them in the "Degree Requirements" section for either the Language Studies or Linguistics major.

Declaring a Minor

• To declare a minor, meet individually with one of the department advisors. If you've declared a major previously in another department, have that department sign off on your coursework before that meeting.

Tips for Planning Your Program

Here are three rules of thumb to keep in mind when embarking on your major in Linguistics or Language Studies:

• Determine how many language courses you need in order to fulfill your language requirement. (Linguistics majors can opt to satisfy the math/computer science requirement instead.) Begin any necessary language instruction as soon as possible.
• Take at least one introductory linguistics course in your first year, and plan to take at least syntax and phonology in your second year. (Junior transfers: take all of these courses in your first year.) If linguistics is not for you, you should find this out early, in order to consider a change in your plans.
• Plan to complete the bulk of your general education requirements early on. The sophomore, junior, and senior years can fill up quickly with major requirements (even more so if you are planning to study abroad). Also, as GEs are often lower-division courses, it can be frustrating to have to take them in the final quarters of your career, when you would like to take more advanced courses.