<p>before i transfered to my university, i took 2 semesters of Spanish at my community college, and got A's in both of them. when i transfered as a junior, i took all my major requirements, and no language. now i'm a senior, and i have a problem. should i take spanish at the university, or do my new passion; italian or latin? if i chose latin, i would have it for 3 quarters. same with italian. or would law schools like to see that i continued my spanish from my JC instead? please help me, i need to know.</p>
<p>depending on how much it will cost which is likely to be much more than community college, i'd finish out spanish</p>
<p>spanish is one, if not the best 2nd language in the "real world"</p>
<p>i wanted to hear the other one (just because spanish has kind of bored me, and i'm ready for something new). the cost doesn't matter. why would you choose spanish? would they like it <em>more</em> if i decided to continue it here, or is the new course in latin just as fine also? anyone else know</p>
<p>In all honesty, I cannot imagine that it would make a difference. Law school admissions is NOT college admissions. Major is much more important than courses taken - and even then, is not very important in the grand scheme of things. There's simply too much variety on the college level to scrutinize every choice. </p>
<p>I do think that it might matter in a few situations; if you got a recommendation from a professor who had taught you for a lot of the Spanish, if you did a second thesis or substantial work in the area, or if you ended up taking a minor or a master's in it. Even then, Spanish isn't law. You're applying to law school, where the main qualifications are analytical skills, reading comprehension, and writing ability. </p>
<p>Latin is very useful in law school - keep that in mind.</p>
<p>My personal bias is that I don't think you should forsake a passion because some admissions person, somewhere, in some law school may possibly hypothetically (but no one is even sure he will notice) look down upon you for that. There are so very many ways to interpret what you are doing. It may be that you love languages and want to get your feet wet in all of them that are linguistically related. Your JC may not have offered Latin or Italian. You may have taken it in high school and been completely Spanished-out by the time you got out of JC. Admissions people will think any one of those things... if they even scrutinize your transcript enough to get there. LSDAS will "sanitize" your transcript, so that it shows the # of As, Bs, Cs, Ds earned each year in college.</p>
<p>aries, thanks for the info. i heard people in other law school forums say that latin is not, or barely helpful if you want to go to law school. now i hear that it is. what's the truth? and if i really want to get an A, is Latin 1 very hard you'd say, or is it like beginning Spanish?</p>
<p>I will echo 2skys1imit3 on Spanish being the best 2nd language in the real world. I will also say Latin can be useful in academic settings -- but typically only then. Once you get out and are interacting in the real world, you might be very happy to have a strong background in Spanish.</p>
<p>I think that studying Latin is only marginally useful for the study of and practice of law. You will learn the Latin terms that you need to know in law school. Otherwise, there is actually a distaste generally for legal briefs and memoranda that are peppered throughout with Latin terms. Other than the terms that every lawyer learned in his or her first year of law school, and other than Latin words that many Americans know from reading a newspaper or watching the evening news (subpoena, caveat emptor, quid pro quo etc.), you will want to do your legal writing using straightforward, clear language -- an example is what the SEC calls "plain English".</p>
<p>Some legal Latin words you will learn in first year of law school include actus reus, mens rea, res judicata (though more commonly known today as issue preclusion/claim preclusion), stare decisis, certiorari, amicus curiae, res ipso loquitor, de facto, de jure, ex post facto, ex parte, nolo contendere, in camera, pro bono publico, prima facie, ultra vires. Learning those of these words that you don't know will be the least of your challenges during your first year of law school.</p>
<p>If you happened to study Latin in high school, fantastic -- it may well help you marginally with the vocabulary necessary to do well on the reading comprehension portions of the LSAT. If you want to be a legal scholar studying older and/or ancient texts, then Latin may be the language for you. Otherwise, I would study something more practical like Spanish.</p>
<p>Actually.... that first day that I was Socratically grilled (i.e. first day, first class), I was asked a question and expected to answer in Latin. The translation is something about, "Whoever does something, without being so forced...." etc etc. How I wish the original jurists were Greek scholars!</p>
<p>That's terrible, aries! I definitely got socratically grilled while in law school more times than I care to count, but fortunately the questions and answers were always in English, thank goodness. Some of the concepts certainly seemed foreign at times, though!</p>
<p>Why <b>is</b> Spanish one of the best languages in the real world, anyways? I've heard this so many time, but always without any justification, that I'm beginning to suspect it is a useless cliche.</p>
<p>Sally, all I could think about was that scene in the Paper Chase when the main character wins the Socratic lottery on first day, first class, gets raked over the coals, leaves the room, and throws up. </p>
<p>In retrospect, it's a great, classic law school story.</p>
<p>Totally off-topic: if you have a last name that is easy to pronounce or amusing, you'll get called on a lot during the first few days. How I wished for some complex Scandanavian surname, filled with letters that get you a lot of points in Scrabble, few vowels, and a diarasis thrown in for good measure. But nooo, it was me and the guy whose last name is the same as a toy who got called on every other freakin class. Gah!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why is Spanish one of the best languages in the real world, anyways? I've heard this so many time, but always without any justification, that I'm beginning to suspect it is a useless cliche.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>One of the fastest growing minority groups in this country is Hispanic, and thus the language you will most likely run into (other than English) is Spanish. You will find this to be true in almost any part of the country these days but particularly in the South and Southwest. In Texas and California, you will likely see the day that people of Hispanic origin will be in the majority. This is partly due to immigration and partly due to reproductive patterns. Check out the US Census Bureau statistics in this regard. You might then believe the useless cliche. :)</p>