When someone asks me what it is I do, I almost always tell them primarily I am a linguist. After all, I am a linguist by training, having received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition I will soon be a teacher in that capacity, soon to be teaching English to students around the world. I have always held deep fascination and enjoyment in languages. I have studied to some extent: German, Latin, Attic Greek and Arabic... and these are all languages I have had formal training in. This is not to mention my more amateur studies of: Esperanto, French, Spanish, Italian and to a lesser extent Russian. All of this is not to say I really have fluency in anything other than English and German, and formally Latin (but I've since lost it by idling). Of course, there are other languages I want to learn in future, such as Japanese, perhaps Mandarin and all the other languages I already mentioned.
As for the subject of linguistics, allow me to describe it a little, since no one ever really seems to know what it means. Linguistics is the formal study of language, the use of language by all peoples, and how it is learned. It is generally broken up into four fields (at least in my training): semantics, pragmatics, grammar and phonetics. Allow me to explain the meaning of each of these to allow a better understanding into the facets of linguistics. Semantics is the study of meaning in language: what distinguishes the word 'boot' from 'shoe' in meaning? Pragmatics is the study of the use of language in day to day accounts: do you talk differently to a kid on the street versus a judge in the courtroom? Grammar is the study of the structure of language, everyone has it and its how we understand the difference between John hits Bob, and Bob hits John, its not just some rules for writing given to you by your teacher. Finally, phoentics is the study of the physical parts that make up language, most often the sounds of language: why does 'l' sound so different from 's'?
Many people assume that a linguist or rather person of linguistics training knows a good many languages, and while this is generally true and it helps for understanding in the field, it is not necessary to know more than one language to be a linguist. Usually when I mention to people I am a linguist, the first question I am asked is "how many languages do you speak", which is always a hard question to take, but an understandable one. I won’t say it is annoying, but it can be frustrating, because it tells me straight away what this person will already believe about and expect in a linguist. There is also a general assumption that for work, someone with a degree in linguistics will be an interpreter, which is probably among the last of things I would want to do. The intensity and knowledge required from an interpreter is nothing that appeals to me, and my fluency in German (my best known language after English) is far too lacking still (even after eight years of study) to ever want to professionally use it.
The truth is, I love the field of linguistics and it is and was a great inspiration for a variety of things I do. It kept me in college and made me stay in a university I otherwise hated. It gave me a better understanding into life generally and for that I'll always be grateful. I don't want to think of myself as only a linguist in life, but many things, and certainly a linguist among those.