All the reasons English Language is the hardest degree

Everyone claims their degree is harder than anyone else’s. Well let me introduce you to English Language/Linguistics, a course you’ve probably never even heard of.

Disclaimer: this is not an English degree. It is a minefield of weird symbols and diagrams, with a bit of Plato thrown in for good measure. In fact, the only thing it has to do with English is that is the language it is taught in. We spend more time on Icelandic and Bengali than we do on English.

'English'

‘Oh cool, so what languages do you study?’

Everyone’s response when you drop the L-bomb. Either that or just a glazed look and a slight nod to show they haven’t the foggiest what you mean but just the word sounds scary enough and they really don’t want you to explain. Just, FYI, we don’t study the words of languages, we study the science of language. See what I mean yet?

How many other subjects is it legit to include in a degree?

Imagine a combined honours in Computer Science, History, Sociology, Philosophy, Biology, Psychology and Statistics. That’s sort of what Linguistics is. Seriously, I will have a lecture about Darwin’s theory of evolution and his finches, immediately followed by a seminar where we discuss Plato’s dialogue ‘Cratylus’, then the next day a lecture about the Norman Conquest before a seminar on brain structure. Last year, I wrote an essay where every single reference came from either the Journal of Neuroscience or the Journal of Psychology. For a girl who as good as failed AS biology, I feel pretty out my depth.

Coding, BA

I kid you not, in second year I wrote the code for a chat bot. For those of you lesser beings who don’t know what that is, it is a basic version of Siri. So this ‘arts’ subject has a lot more to it than just 9 contact hours a week. To some, coding sounds like the ultimate ‘geek chic’. This hip new trend which holds the keys to some new and wonderful place. Yes it’s hard but if it's worth knowing then surely it's worth fighting for (I think this was the hidden message Cheryl Cole was trying to convey in Fight For This Love). I will admit it was kind of cool, but not what I was expecting when I chose a degree about English.

Translation: why is linguistics so hard

Syntax, the devil's own work

If syntax was a film, it would be Inception. Mind bending, impossibly hard and every time you think you've got it you're completely wrong. It's about the underlying structures of a language, and the categories different types of words fit into. These then somehow relate to diagrams called trees. I’ve been studying it for 3 years and I can pretty much only tell you this: it’s crazy hard and has something to do with sentences.

This is what nightmares look like written down

No one cares

A lot of our degree is really pointless. How many shits do I give that 72% of the country say ‘bath’ one way and the rest say it another? About the same amount that I give about the different systems there are for categorising syllables. There are 4 different ways of representing groups of syllable, and none of them are going to have any relation to anything that anyone ends up doing in the future.

Despite everything though, I suppose I kind of love our course. The coding is unexpected, but if its good enough for Karlie Kloss to set up a summer camp about, its good enough for me. Or do I just love to complain about it?