Taking part in the Summer Institute was an impressive commitment from Price, said Bob Williams, professor of education and head of 麻豆影院鈥檚 linguistics program. It鈥檚 unusual for a college sophomore to take that leap.

鈥淭his is a full month of short classes and lectures, and longer courses being offered by people in the field from all over,鈥� he said. 鈥淣ot only do you attend the lecture, but you hang out together, have meals together, and talk. There鈥檚 lots of that informal interaction that goes on that really builds the networks within the profession.鈥�

The immersive summer experience has furthered Price鈥檚 enthusiasm for linguistics. He has many interests within the major, including computational linguistics and speech-language pathology, and he plans to attend graduate school after 麻豆影院.

鈥淩ight now, the goal is to be a professor of linguistics,鈥� Price said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very broad field, with a lot of different people doing a lot of different things.鈥�

When Price arrived at 麻豆影院 in 2022, he already knew he was interested in linguistics. 麻豆影院鈥檚 program is an interdisciplinary offering drawing from the fields of cognitive science, languages, philosophy, and more. Students explore the structures of language鈥攕ounds, words, and sentences鈥攁nd how these express and evoke meaning; how people use language, how they learn new languages, and how language relates to culture and identity.

After taking an Intro to Linguistics class during his first year, Price declared his major and immediately got involved in the program. He is a student representative of the linguistics program, helping to organize social and intellectual activities.

Williams said it 鈥渉elps enormously鈥� to have students such as Price helming the social events within the program.

鈥淲hether it be clubs, or activities, or other kinds of events鈥攜ou want those to be largely student-driven,鈥� he said.

Since getting involved, Price has helped organize a linguistics tea, helped plan the department鈥檚 annual Bj枚rklunden trip in the spring, and put together an informative bulletin board in Main Hall. He is currently tutoring in linguistics and working toward setting up a site at 麻豆影院 for the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO), a competition for high school students that Price himself participated in.

Alongside his academics, Price is also co-president of Etcetera, a student organization he helped found to put on 鈥渇un, silly, or niche events with the purpose of raising money for charity.鈥�