What I Did with My College Degree: B.A. In Linguistics & Middle Eastern Studies

I started my undergraduate college career as a double major in French and International Relations. My freshmen year I signed up for Introduction to Linguistics, and after learning how to write in the International Phonetic Alphabet, analyzing the sentence structures of different languages and being exposed to the immense variety in the world's 6,000+ languages, I was hooked.

The school I was at only offered a minor in Linguistics, so I started looking for other options. I finally decided on the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass-Amherst). I also wanted to refocus the broader field of International Relations to a specific region, and I chose Middle Eastern Studies as my second major.

After four and a half years of attempting to master Arabic gutturals, mixing up Biblical Hebrew with Hindi and Urdu, trekking to mosques in Morocco's Atlas Mountains and writing dozens of papers on things like "Semantics of Arabic Broken Plurals" and "Foreign Policy Recommendations for the U.S. Relationship with Iran" I graduated and moved to Pakistan.

My goal in moving to Pakistan was to work in education development. My background in Middle Eastern Studies and my year spent studying abroad in Morocco served as a useful introduction to Muslim culture, and although Pakistan is different from the Arab world in many ways, this understanding of Islam helped me to relate with locals and make my classes culturally relevant.

My studies in Linguistics prepared me to teach English as a Second Language (ESL) to teacher trainees and to lecture at a local women's university. As Linguistics is a fairly new field in Pakistan, my undergraduate studies put me in the place of an expert and I was able to lecture for an MA TESOL program. I taught courses in Listening & Speaking, Syntax and Semantics. The content of the courses was similar to first or second year undergraduate Linguistics courses.

I also worked with a local NGO that focuses on teacher training. There I designed and taught workshops in English Phonetics & Phonology, Teaching ESL and Creative Writing along with several other subjects. I found that combining what I learned in college along with my own experiences of teaching ESL and learning languages allowed me to make a career abroad as a linguist and teacher trainer.

After three years of doing this type of work, I decided to come back to the U.S. and pursue teacher certification for secondary English. Although my college degree did not prepare me for this career, I was able to study and pass the teacher certification examinations on my first attempt. I didn't study literature in college, so I decided to pursue an M.A. in English.

If the decision was only about what I enjoyed studying, I would have chosen to do a graduate degree in Anthropology, Middle Eastern Studies, Journalism or a Middle Eastern language. However, I was ready to pursue a degree that would lead to a specific career rather than a hodgepodge of freelancing opportunities and part-time lecturing positions in foreign countries. During my undergraduate degree I indulged in studying what most interested me, and now I am studying for something with a clearer career path as an international teacher.Learn more about what Heather has done with her college degree:

Travel Writing: Meet Matador intern, Heather Carreiro

ESL Lesson Plans: Free ESL and English Lesson Plans & Resources

Pakistan Travel Tips: Expat Life & Travel in Pakistan

Personal Blog: Expat Heather