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University of California, Santa Cruz

Focus / Concentrations:                 Theoretical

Department / College:                   Department of Linguistics

If you’ve ever heard anything about UC Santa Cruz, you’ve probably heard it’s that hippie school where they don’t give grades. Or, that the campus is so beautiful that people don’t bother doing anything except basking in the sun and dreaming about banana slugs. While this is all true, what you may not have heard is that Santa Cruz has a very prestigious, hardcore linguistics program, with a strict focus on phonology, syntax, and semantics. One of the things that this linguistics program is known for is its record of training very good teachers. This reputation helps its grad students get hired; according to some, the hiring record of syntax grads is even better at Santa Cruz than at MIT, though we can’t confirm that. Pretty much the only drawback of attending Santa Cruz is that the funding isn’t as great as it would be at a non-UC school, which can be a pain because the Santa Cruz area is relatively expensive. Also, if you’re interested in anything that’s even slightly outside of theoretical linguistics, you definitely don’t want to apply here.

The Linguistics Department at the University of California Santa Cruz is considered one of the best in theoretical linguistics. This is probably due to their focus on three theoretical areas of syntax, semantics, and phonology at the exclusion of other areas of linguistics.