What is the value of taking a linguistics class in college if you are not a linguistics major?

It makes a better learner – and a better person – in many ways. You use language to learn everything. You don’t take university English (in the U.S.) to learn to read and write, you take it to enhance your abilities of English language comprehension, thought processing, and communication. A linguistic class is a socially scientific philosophy course for languages, a space for exercises of abstract thinking, and a way to improve your understanding of others. It’s far more than just a reading, writing, history, or language course.

A proper linguistics course clarifies why, where, when, and how language works. Thusly, it changes the mundane or granted aspects of language toward appreciation through revealing language’s complexity, both through time and across culture. You’re made to realize the cognition involved, the evolutionary and developmental steps, the diversity across societies, how it greatly influences worldview and culture, and how it’s pretty amazing we can form or understand a sentence.

These things will make you a better learner in any course of study and likely make you a better human in general, beyond just communication. A linguistic course does more than overview languages of the world, it has to delve deep into the nature of humans and it often is very challenging and so developmental.

Further, in general, if you ponder why you should study something apparently irrelevant to you, know there are always merits in this type of endeavor. Engaging in a school of thought different from your aspired track is very helpful for facilitating your critical thinking and problem solving. You can’t make progress unless you think outside of the confines and refrain from enclosing yourself in rigid paradigms. Any class should leave you with newly developed modes of thinking applicable to your future intellectual processes. Plus, you should seek challenging courses to supplement your well-known or comforting studies if just for intellectual exercise if not for deeper insight.

Linguistics is a top course I would recommend to any type of student who wants to get ahead and invest wisely. It’s a mental developer in general, but also it will enhance your ability to learn and build relationships, as you’ll be more thoughtful and proficient in this primary mode of education. Language is how humans learn to such great heights and express their knowledge. I would specifically recommend an introductory course in linguistic anthropology as it often has richer, more applicable content that is immediately valuable to anyone. I also urge you to study another language, both for the experience and skill set but also for the mind improving benefits.