Georgia Button, 2015
After graduating from UCSB with a degree in Language, Culture and Society, I started working for a start up marketing firm, operating at the intersection of design, technology, social impact and lifestyle. We create go-to-market campaigns for startups such as Saucy- the alcohol delivery app and Boon and Gable- self described uber for stylists. My position allows me to walk the line between creative and editorial work, managing social media and fine-tuning pitches.
Tara Clark, 2015
As an undergraduate at UCSB, I was a Language, Culture, & Society and a Philosophy Ethics & Public Policy double major with a minor in Education. I wasn't quite ready to leave UCSB after only two years as an undergraduate, so I decided to stay at UCSB and keep up my Gaucho pride as a first year Master's & PhD student in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education with an Applied Linguistics emphasis. In addition, I am currently teaching Dos Pueblos High School seniors about language use in their families, peer groups, and communities as part of the SKILLS program.
Daniel Epp, 2015
I studied at UCSB as an international student from Switzerland. After graduating, I moved to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand where I have been teaching English as a foreign language at a high school. The change of pace and scenery has been a very rewarding experience overall. I have maintained my passion for languages by studying Thai, which is my first attempt at a tonal language. As for the future, I plan to pursue a master’s degree in TESOL, and I am dreaming about opening my own language school one day.
Danielle Burbank, 2014
Since graduation I have had the opportunity to study a Post-Baccalaureate in Speech and Hearing Science, later pursuing one of my dreams to move abroad to Spain and teach English for a year. Post-graduate life has been a time of exploring and discovering what I really want to do for my career. I wouldn't trade my time at UCSB for the world and everything I experienced in my undergraduate career has shaped who I am today and influences the decisions I'm making now. With the support of UCSB professors I have applied to various Masters Programs and will go on to study my Masters in the Fall of 2016.
Xander Johnson, 2014
Just before graduating, I completed my undergraduate thesis "The Role of Inflectional Morpholgy in Co-occurrence Semantic Representations", advised by Fermín Moscoso del Prado Martín. This project created an interest in working for a computational company involved with big data - and shortly thereafter I began working as a Technical Training Instructor at Splunk Inc. Splunk provides operational intelligence software for companies to make use of historical and in-transit data to make informed decisions. A year later, I became a Senior Technical Training instructor and have since been teaching and researching data science.
Cedar Lay, 2014
After receiving my B.A. in Linguistics with a French emphasis in 2014, I spent the following nine months living in Lyon, France as an English teacher for the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF). As an English teacher, I worked with French students ages 11-15 providing them with American English lessons, something they seldom see as their courses usually pertain to British English. I am now in the process of applying for PhD programs for Language Documentation in the hopes of one day conducting my own fieldwork and research.
Nate Rosen, 2014
After graduating from UCSB I set off on a 6-month backpacking tour of Europe and the Middle East. The language skills I learned during my time in the Linguistics department proved invaluable to me, as my main mode of transportation was hitchhiking. Upon returning to the United States I accepted a job with the San Francisco Giants operating the Tours Department. I now interact with players and fans from all over the globe, giving me ample opportunity to test my sociolinguistic skills.
Joseph Harrington, 2013
After double majoring in Psychology and Linguistics, I began a temporary position as an elementary school Speech Clinician. With an academic background described as “definitely related to Speech Pathology,” I provided speech therapy to about 40 students. While in this position, I secured a permanent Language Speech and Hearing Specialist position with Tracy Unified School District. I was offered the position under the condition that I continue to obtain units toward my Master’s Degree in Speech Language Pathology, which I am pursuing through La Salle University’s online PreSLP program.
Kris Horowitz, 2013
After graduating from UCSB, Kris moved to New York to work as community manager at the story-telling app Tapestry, under the tech company Betaworks. She now works for the mobile game Two Dots as a game designer. She enjoys looking at the localization strings for the languages the app is translated into.
Mike Larosa, 2013
After graduating from UCSB I returned to my hometown of Sacramento, where I now work in digital marketing for an auto dealership, creating promotional materials and managing customer relations and outreach. In addition, I somehow became a semi-professional comedian, performing one to two times a week at a local comedy club. I love that my Linguistics studies have strengthened my communicative skills, and that I get to use those skills for both work and pleasure.
Elise Bell, 2012
I graduated from UCSB with a BA in Linguistics and Anthropology in 2012, and am currently enrolled in my third year in the University of Arizona's Linguistics PhD program. In 2015, I won an NSF East Asian and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) fellowship to spend the summer in Australia, conducting research on North Australian Kriol, and presented the results of that research at the 2016 LSA Annual Meeting. My dissertation research compares the production of vowel contrasts in dialects of Welsh spoken in Wales and Argentina.
Lindsey Downs, 2012
Since graduating in 2012 with emphasis in French and a minor in TESOL, I took a year off to explore linguistically-related graduate school options in the LA area. My search led me to CSU Northridge, where, in Fall 2013, I began a post-baccalaureate program in Communication Disorders and Sciences. I was eventually accepted to continue on to their Master of Science program in Speech-Language Pathology beginning Fall 2015. The Linguistics background from UCSB has prepared me well for this field of study, as I intend to serve the aphasic population.
Jefferson Herbst de Cortina, 2012
After graduating with my BA in Linguistics, I moved to Madison, Wisconsin to work as a technical writer at Epic Systems, a healthcare IT company specializing in electronic medical record software. In 2015, I left Epic to spend several months traveling in Southeast Asia before moving back home to Los Angeles. I now work in management at McMaster-Carr, an industrial supply chain and logistics company here in Los Angeles.
Taylor Parks, 2012
Following graduation with my B.A. in Linguistics, I was accepted at Teach for America, a non-profit organization that places new graduates in underprivileged areas to teach. I was placed in Waianae, Oahu to teach 6th grade English and then 2nd grade math. I earned my teaching credential and MEd. in Education from Chaminade University of Honolulu and continue to teach at my original placement school.
Kristen Dunkinson, 2011
In 2009 I began classes at UCSB and quickly fell in love with my school. In the Linguistics department I felt supported, encouraged and at home. After a wonderful experience, I graduated from UCSB in 2011. I went on to earn a Master's Degree in Linguistics at Eastern Michigan University and became the Managing Editor of The Linguist List. After graduating I was able to get a job in Japan where I have been teaching for a year and a half. Without the foundation UCSB help me create in my education I couldn’t have accomplished my goals of teaching abroad.
Hana Saito, 2011
I have been pursuing my career in TESOL after I graduated from UCSB. I got my TESOL certificate in August 2012, got my first teaching job in January 2013, and hope to complete my M.S.Ed. in TESOL in June 2016. So far, I have taught students from at least 20 countries in the United States and Japan. One of my favorite parts of this career has been gaining insights into students' native culture.
Susana Semerdzhyan, 2011
After graduating from UCSB with a B.A. in Linguistics, I went on to teach at an elementary school in Los Angeles and discovered that I loved teaching. In June 2014, I got my M.A. in TESOL and have been teaching English in France since then. I work with adults, college students, and elementary school students. I love my job and feel that my linguistics background from UCSB has helped me become a better teacher.
Tasha Vogel-Seidenberg, 2010
After graduating from UCSB, I received my Master of Science in Communicative Disorders from CSU Northridge. I am currently in my fourth year as a speech language pathologist working in the Bay Area. I work with students from K-5th grade and began supervising other speech language pathologists last year. This job has been fulfilling and has given me the opportunity to travel and explore other parts of the United States.
Mackenzie Chapman, 2009
I've been living in southern China and Hong Kong for the past three years, starting as an ESL teacher at a business university. I eventually gave up academia to start doing business in international trading, where collaborating with people from Hong Kong, mainland China, Europe and Africa often tests my sociolinguistic skills.
James Grama, 2008
After graduating from UCSB with a BA in Linguistics, I was accepted into the PhD program at the University of Hawai?i at M?noa Department of Linguistics. In Spring of 2015, I successfully defended my dissertation, “Variation and Change in Hawai?i Creole Vowels”, which investigates how the vowel realizations in the English-lexified creole spoken in Hawai?i have changed over time, gender, phonological context, and the number of Hawai?i Creole morphosyntactic features exhibited by a speaker. Currently, I am continuing my research while serving as an Adjunct Instructor at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles, where I teach Introduction to Linguistics.
Corinne Seals, 2008
Since graduating from UCSB, I have recieved a full fellowship to Georgetown, worked as the Ukrainian language representative at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington DC, and worked with the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit Forensic Linguistics team. I will be defending my Ph.D. in Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics at Georgetown in Spring 2013.