Another one of those "What career is most suitable for you?" tests.
 

You should strongly consider majoring (or minoring) in Communication, English, Film, Journalism, Literature, or Writing.

You scored as English/Journalism/Comm.

It is possible that the best major for you could be your 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th listed category, so be sure to consider ALL majors in your other high scoring categories (below). You may score high in a category you didnt think you would--it is possible that a great major for you is something you once dismissed as not for you. The right major for you will be something 1) you love and enjoy and 2) are really great at. Consider adding a minor or double major to make yourself stand out and to combine your interests.

English/Journalism/Comm		94%
Religion/Theology		88%
Visual & Performing Arts		81%
Psychology/Sociology		81%
Education/Counseling		75%
French/Spanish/Other Language		50%
Nursing/AthleticTraining/Health		50%
History/Anthropology/LiberalArts		44%
Biology/Chemistry/Geology		38%
PoliticalScience/Philosophy		31%
Accounting/Finance/Marketing		19%
HR/Business Management		19%
Physics/Engineering/Computer		13%
Mathematics/Statistics		0%

WHAT MAJOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
created with QuizFarm.com
Hat tip: Pei Ling.

 
I don't know about the "Visual & performing arts" thing, but as far as I can tell, knowing myself, the rest are all pretty accurate. I'm hoping to do a Masters in Christian Studies after I finish my Masters in Linguistics, so that covers the first two items, and since I want to teach English, that covers the fifth item. There ya go.

I was actually pretty good at math when I was in school, but it's like my mom used to say: practice makes perfect. Now I just use the calculator in my mobile phone to do calculations, and am well on my way to forgetting my multiplication tables! I also took accounting as an extra subject during high school (I was a science student -- chemistry, physics and biology) and did well in it, and even worked as a part-time accounts assistant during college for a few months. Those few months were, however, more than enough to convince me that I was not cut out to stare at numbers every day. The tedium bored me to tears (not to mention, my accounts would never balance!).

The Malaysian school system used to require students to choose either the arts or the sciences when they are 15. I wanted to delve into the arts because I wanted to do literature, and also because I was fairly sure that I was better arts material than I was science material. But I was told not to take arts because all the best students are in the sciences, and if you go to the arts stream you'll be stuck with the slower students, the students who either have difficulty learning or are not very interested to learn, and I'd be bored out of my skull, and frustrated. So They predicted, the almighty They whom we too often allow to rule our lives. As a result, I went into the sciences.

I did okay but till today do not understand physics at all. You must understand, there are a lot of things I am interested in, but reading about them and having to remember them for exams are two different matters altogether. Plus, reading them in Malay (the national language) somehow made them sound very much less fascinating than they would have been had I read them in English, which is my first language.

It wasn't till 2003 that the Education Ministry decided that maths and science subjects should be taught in English rather than Malay. Too late for me, alas.

Sheikh is a great word on several levels. First, there’s the silent h on the end that practically says “fuck you.” It doesn’t even pretend to be working. I like consonants with attitude.
—Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog

It all started when a friend of mine posted a link to an online primary school textbook in the Foochow dialect (one of the Chinese dialects).

This sparked off a discussion on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), an internationally recognised system used to describe how words of any language are pronounced.

"Why doesn't the entire world teach children to use the IPA? It would make learning how to read foreign languages a lot easier!" another friend commented.

The thing is, you'd then have to produce books which incorporate both writing systems, like how Mandarin textbooks have the Chinese characters with the corresponding pinyin below each character. It's okay when you're trying to describe a language that doesn't use the Romanised alphabet. The fun starts once you try to describe a language like English... because quite a number of the symbols used in IPA are the same as letters of the Roman alphabet, but sometimes represent or refer to different things. Talk about confusing.

For example, the letter j in IPA refers to the 'y' sound. So if you have a word beginning with 'y' in English, when you write it out phonetically using the IPA you'd start with 'j'. Imagine looking at /jes/ and reading 'yes'.

And some English words are already so difficult to spell, IPA is only going to further compound the problem and confuse the poor student. Think about it:

cat --> /kat/
apple --> /epəl/
love --> /lʌv/

My senior kept on saying that results should be out by now, so yesterday we traipsed over to the university to take a look at the noticeboard, and lo and behold! Provisional results were pinned onto the board in all their glory.

No names, though. Only student numbers. How's that for anonymity?

And my results are... [drum roll]

General Linguistics: B+
Applied Linguistics: A
Structure of English: A

I couldn't believe it.

Come to think of it, every time I get good exam results, I never quite believe my ears or eyes. When I was in my final year as an undergraduate and called the college to get my results, I was so incredulous that I called again the next day -- just in case the person reading the results to me had seen the wrong name or read the wrong line or something!

Anyway, this time I was quite flabbergasted coz I'd felt like I was writing grandfather stories in the exam hall. I came home after my papers and told friends that I had never waffled like that on paper in my entire life.

I figure the assignments must've saved me... since exams account for only 50% of the final marks.

Wow! *celebrates*