<p>I am an accepted student and am interested in taking beginning chinese freshman year, with the possibility of minoring in it in the future. How hard is chinese at Vandy for someone with no experience in the language. I want to be an Econ major and can't kill my gpa for business school.</p>
<p>I think I would check out the profs on Ratemyprofessors to see what students have to say about those beginning Chinese courses. My D took beginning Latin at Vandy her freshman yr (having taken 4 yrs of Spanish, but no Latin in HS) and found that she was the only person in the class who hadn’t taken HS Latin. The prof took pity on her and she made it through, but she switched to Spanish the next semester. You may find more true beginners in a Chinese class, however.</p>
<p>The beginning sequence of Chinese will be predominantly composed of true beginners. You will find native speakers of the language, (who are there to boost their GPA) but they are in the minority. </p>
<p>In regards to the difficulty of Chinese, I would say its actually very easy. I barely studied and still managed to pull a good grade. The format of the class is organized, and the professors are good (although that changes from year to year). Overall, though, I would not be concerned over the difficulty.</p>