Any 2700 Linguists around?

[Johrai]

I am curious if there are any linguists around to answer a few questions. I am enlisted in the DEP, ship date of 10172011, but am still under a general contract. Waiting for jobs to open up for the new fiscal year.

I did well on the ASVAB with a 96 and fairly well on the DLAB with 107. My recruiter suggest Intelligence or Linguistics, both of which we my first choices. I have some experience in east asian languages, including Chinese and Japanese.

My question is this; for an entry level linguist position, exactly what is the day-in-day-out business? I understand some linguists are sequestered away in bunker on information warfare duty, but I also have heard of some being deployed to the field. Does it change based on what language you know, or rather, what unit you are attached to?

I'm not necessarily looking to be stuck in a bunker in god-knows-where for the next 5 years of my life, on the other hand I certainly do want one of these two fields.

Any thoughts to share? I appreciate it,
Zach

[AjC]

With a DLAB of 107, you'd probably be better off in the Intel field rather than the Languages, but it's up to you. DLI is a very difficult school, even for those who're able to grasp the concept.

As for whether or not you'll be in the field - it really does all depend on which unit you'd be stationed with. That's Marine Corps wide, not just in regards to Intel and Linguists. It's all based on what the Marine Corps needs at the time.

[Johrai]

With a DLAB of 107, you'd probably be better off in the Intel field rather than the Languages, but it's up to you. DLI is a very difficult school, even for those who're able to grasp the concept.

As for whether or not you'll be in the field - it really does all depend on which unit you'd be stationed with. That's Marine Corps wide, not just in regards to Intel and Linguists. It's all based on what the Marine Corps needs at the time.

AjC, thanks for the reply.

I read that a score of over 100 is passing for most languages, am I mistaken? As I said, I have previous experience in languages, so I think the schooling would not be a huge problem. Is the school exceptionally difficult?

Additionally, with that lower score is the chance pretty slim to be assigned an east asian language? I believe Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are on the 110+ for the DLAB, which means I would have to waiver for them, so I would probably be stuck with European or Arabic languages, yes?

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

[AjC]

There were people who failed out of Spanish and a few that failed out of Arabic, even with DLAB scores in the upper 130's. They said it was wake up, school, sleep, rinse and repeat. Then again, the DLAB is just a standardized test. The fact that you do have experience with multiple languages probably would help a lot for DLI. As for which language you get, you'll likely get one of the more difficult ones because of that background you have.

[Johrai]

There were people who failed out of Spanish and a few that failed out of Arabic, even with DLAB scores in the upper 130's. They said it was wake up, school, sleep, rinse and repeat. Then again, the DLAB is just a standardized test. The fact that you do have experience with multiple languages probably would help a lot for DLI. As for which language you get, you'll likely get one of the more difficult ones because of that background you have.

I appreciate your insight and honesty. It looks like I may not even be able to waiver for Cat IV languages, the information I have now only speaks of language waivers for Cat I and II. Regardless, my DLAB will get me into Cat I through III languages, which is fine by me!

May I ask if you are a linguist or is a friend of yours? I am curious as to exactly which languages are in demand these days. Assuming Asian languages are un-waiverable, I would assume that Farsi is probably the language of choice. However, I can see Russian or Dari being in demand as well. Any thoughts?

[haebyungdae]

You are not going to get everything that you want. And, whether you are linguistics, EW, or Intel (0200) it is extremely difficult to define what exactly your day-to-day duties would be because it varies so much depending on where you are stationed and what your particular billet is.

Also, you have to define what the "field" is. Just because you go to the "field" doesn't mean that you would be doing something cool or high-speed; you could be doing any number of mundane things. And even though you may end up in a desk billet does not mean that it is not cooler then what those guys going to the "field" are doing.

[Mxzero]

Pashto's what they need right now ultimately. Farsi/Dari...eh. And it's not the cold war anymore, we don't need Russian like we used to. You can't get Japanese, officer only language and I've never heard of an enlisted getting Chinese, not to say it doesn't happen. And it depends. In my battalion, in garrison it's studying the language or learning the other aspects of the intelligence field. On deployment, it's mainly translating anything collected.