Introduction

I love Linguistics. I think Linguistics is such an ever-changing integral part of our existence that we don’t give enough proper attention to as a society. We overlook how our words and speech affect aspects of the real world, and how we view things. I really enjoy linguistics, but there’s always that nagging voice in my head that tells me I’ve made the wrong choice, and that’s what I want to talk about now. I am 22 years old, 4th year undergraduate, and struggling with my identity in my field.

Why?

I have always been fascinated by technology, but more generally I am a hobbyist. I have a wide variety of skills and interests just because I find it really fun to learn new things. But this comes with its faults, and I think I can circle this back to when I was in secondary school.

Programming to cope

The title of this section isn’t an exaggeration by any means. When I was in secondary, I would program to cope. What I mean by this is sort of complicated, but I will try my best to verbalize my thoughts.

I had an ego to protect, a fragile ego which I didn’t realize existed. My idea of an ego at the time was inflated self-worth which is part of what ego is. But what I had was very little self worth, and a survival-like instinct to protect this idea of who I was in my head. What did this mean in terms of my course content? Quite a bit. In my classes, I would always bugger off to do things I found more enjoyable instead of caring about course content, even in classes that I found enjoyable. In Spanish, I would do Duolingo for other languages. In Programming, I would learn about other programming languages and try out different IDEs/text editors. In English, I would learn other languages. In Math, I would Program. It took me until just now to realize what I was doing.

I was coping.

Growing up, putting effort into something was seen negatively in the eyes of many. You were considered a “try-hard” – a title which can make or break people. When we’re kids, we want to fit in with everyone else. When we have something, a lot of the time we don’t want to lose it. So what I did was put up this shield to hide myself from disappointing others all while slightly underperforming to my standards. I would do this by not paying attention, and by constantly doing what I wanted instead. It was “cooler” to NOT do course work in the courses I was in, and do that course work in other courses instead. It’s backwards, so it’s funny!! I was hiding myself from disappointment, from feeling failure, so by constantly studying other things it was an excuse for my underperforming. Programming just so happened to be the habit that stuck around the most.

How this relates

For someone that can come off as sometimes confident, out-spoken, and maybe even arrogant, I have very low self confidence in myself and what I do. This is due to a multitude of reasons that have led to me having (metaphorical) scars which have prevented me from pushing myself in what I really want to do. I don’t like letting people down but I like over-performing. This in turn makes me a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I can boost up my skills to make myself look better on a resume, while having (in my opinion) an average understanding of what’s required.

I am not confident in my major because I haven’t gone as head-first as I should have. This is due to multiple health complications I’ve had throughout the past 4 years, but it’s caused this lack of confidence in myself and my abilities as a linguist-in-training. So instead, I try and hide away and program on my own. Most people don’t know what a linguist does, or what one even is. So what better than to constantly doubt myself and consider switching into something CompSci related!!! /s

Considering other options?

Honestly, I am but I don’t think it’s that serious. I started writing this a month ago, and then let it go because I wanted to give myself more time to reflect. I think a month later, everything above is still true and makes sense, but I don’t think at the moment I am willing to stop doing linguistics, and I am going to take this summer to figure out what it is that I really want with it. I am not going to work, but I am going to start streaming on a schedule again for ~8 hour sessions (60 minutes + 10 minute pomodoros). I want to grow my channel while also working on developing skills that I know will help me in the future.

Aside from Linguistics, I think data science is really cool and I’ve been enjoying learning Python. Like I’ve said before, I’ve always had a fascination with technology and computer programming, but have never been really good at it. With Python, I am learning it to complement whatever theoretical skills I work out in the future. It can be seen as me trying to work on a backup plan incase this all goes to shit, but I think it’s an unhealthy and unproductive line of thought that I have been running for a long time now. Thinking that way is what got me here in the first place, and breaking from that is what’s causing me the most friction in my life. I do think that if Linguistics falls through that having Python would be a really good skill for me to have, but I also just enjoy learning Python. I have my own tmux + neovim + tmux-sessionizer workflow that I use to get things done when watching lectures and it’s really comfortable :) But yeah, long story short, I am not giving up on grad school and I am not giving up on Linguistics yet (if it happens then it happens. I’d never say anything is 100% for certain).

Conclusion

I’m just scared of being vulnerable and failing like I have time and time again. Before getting my concussion back in October, I was headed on the right track. It’s never too late to change, and I now know at the back of my head I know what I want to do, and that’s Linguistics. Constantly doubting myself isn’t productive nor is it helping anyone. I don’t want to continue on like this, so I’m trying to read more related to my major and really immerse myself in what I want to do.

Since this happens to me quite often, I’ve developed a system where I write down what it is I am doing in the moment, why I am stressed about it, if it’s worth doing, and if it’s even worth being stressed about. It’s helped overcome a lot of bad habits and minimize task-switching. Using a tiling window manager also helps a lot with this, and I cannot recommend it enough. Using a terminal multiplexer, being comfortable with the terminal, along with Zotero has been really helpful for my academics, so expect a video on that in the future.

Anyways, that’s the rant. That’s the ramble. Thanks for reading.