I'm in my early 20s with an undergraduate degree in Linguistics . I picked that as my major because for a brief period I thought I wanted to be an actual academic linguist--but as I learned more about the field and that part of academia, I realized it didn't appeal to me, and on top of that it has low impact. I enjoyed the STEM related parts of Linguistics the most in college (neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational, etc.), but my training in those areas was haphazard and not at the level I'd need to get a job in those fields. My instinct now would be to pivot into something quantitative, but I lack the skills. I'm wondering if I should attempt to self-teach in these areas (which might be difficult, given that I work) to build career capital, or if it would be worth taking on debt to do a higher degree in a field like engineering? I'm wary of doing another few years of school without a very specific aim in mind.
I'm in my early 20s with an undergraduate degree in Linguistics . I picked that as my major because for a brief period I thought I wanted to be an actual academic linguist--but as I learned more about the field and that part of academia, I realized it didn't appeal to me, and on top of that it has low impact. I enjoyed the STEM related parts of Linguistics the most in college (neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, computational, etc.), but my training in those areas was haphazard and not at the level I'd need to get a job in those fields. My instinct now would be to pivot into something quantitative, but I lack the skills. I'm wondering if I should attempt to self-teach in these areas (which might be difficult, given that I work) to build career capital, or if it would be worth taking on debt to do a higher degree in a field like engineering? I'm wary of doing another few years of school without a very specific aim in mind.