t Viewbook - Undergraduate Admissions - Gallaudet University

A full-immersion experience
for hearing students
Bachelor of Arts in Interpretation: With video
and audio equipment in Gallaudet’s award-winning
interactive laboratory that replicates real-life working
situations, students who graduate from Gallaudet’s
Bachelor of Arts in Intepretation program (BAI) are
uniquely prepared to work in a variety of legal, medical,
business, education, and government settings.
The Bachelor of Arts in Interpretation program is also
open to deaf and hard of hearing and hearing students.
Hearing Undergraduate Students: Admission is also
open to a limited, select group of hearing undergraduate
students, known around campus as “HUGs.” The HUG
program is for students who aren’t deaf or hard of hearing
but have knowledge of American Sign Language and
want to work with deaf people or in the deaf community.
Live alongside deaf and hard of hearing classmates and
immerse yourself in a bilingual learning experience like no
other in the world.
BRAIN AND LANGUAGE LAB FEATURES
REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY
In 2010, Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto,
a world-renowned cognitive
neuroscientist and a developmental
cognitive neuroscientist, opened
Gallaudet’s state-of-the-art
Brain and Language Laboratory
(BL2). Functional Near-Infrared
Spectroscopy, or fNIRS, is the
centerpiece of BL2 and is one of the
world’s most advanced brain imaging
systems. At this lab, Petitto and her
team study the acquisition and neural
processing of language, the optimal
conditions for bilingual language development, and the effects of early
bilingual language exposure on the developing brain and its functions.
Having an independent neuro-imaging center at Gallaudet affords both
undergraduate and graduate students research and internship experience;
it also allows BL2 researchers to dedicate the equipment full-time to
tracking language acquisition and processing in children.
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Academics