Students interested in language studies and linguistics may be best suited to a phonetics program. Individuals may learn how to collect and interpret data, measure speech sounds and even create experiments to analyze speech while completing this study program.

The PhD is a doctoral degree, specifically called a "doctor of philosophy" degree. This is misleading because PhD holders are not necessarily philosophers (unless they earned their degree in philosophy!). That said, PhD recipients are able to engage in thought experiments, reason about problems, and solve problems in sophisticated ways.