WHY DID I CHOOSE MY MAJOR?
Originally I had studied International Relations--in which I got a Bachelor's Degree. I liked it, and it was interesting, but as time went on I had increasing doubts about working in that area. At least it was general enough that there were various employment opportunities. Language was a part of that major, and I always really loved that. I studied Polish (and 2 years of Russian were obligatory), and then also worked as a translator and transcriber in the Polish Section of "Voice of America" radio station, so I had a very strong connection with language. Besides, I had grown up bilingually with German. Therefore, as a consequence, linguistic issues were always sort of present. Actually, I had been interested in the science and study of Linguistics from the start. I was provisionally accepted to the MA program in Linguistics at George Mason University in 1989. I say provisionally because I had not actually studied it at the BA level, and they had doubts about me. I was ...