Computational Linguistics

Great major, super niche (if you like that type of thing), and the cohorts are super small and tight-knit. Curriculum-wise, however, it’s quite new so it’s half comp sci classes half linguistics classes. And I think they just implemented a capstone project. I don’t think they do that good of a job of marrying both disciplines to converge it into an AI/LLM-focused major, so I’d say that you would have to seek opportunities for learning those aspects of Comp Ling outside of the classroom. Nonetheless, faculty is great and the linguistics aspect of the major gives you an edge and various options for what you want to do in the future. I don’t think any of my peers in the same major are doing the same thing so I think that’s pretty cool.

5 required CS classes. If you are better at reading and writing CS does have: A learning curve 103/104. Linguistics has some more quantitative courses with pragmatics(semantic trees/logic) & morphology(more semantic trees/real world applications). Many research opportunities which are good to get your foot in the door for grad. Opportunities to work in AI: I have a minor in AI and there’s a lot of intercept.

The linguistics community is really small and tight knit and pretty welcoming but you have to be super careful about what classes you take. Since compling is a dual program between the school of engineering and liberal arts, you might have to take extra credits beyond 128 to graduate because of credit requirements from Dornsife (liberal arts)

Fantastic major for people who aspire to become a software engineer. Enough CS core requirement to get internships and be ready for the workforce.

Good balance between linguistics and CS, with multiple career pathways in research and software engineering.

This major is unique to UCLA, which contributed to my decision to commit here.