<p>How useful will a major in Chinese or East Asian Studies be?
Not currently planning graduate study. How can I make it more useful? Would like to hear from anyone who majored in these areas and were they able to put their studies to use.</p>
<p>A major in Chinese would be immensely useful if you could attain fluency. Innumerable companies would hire you for business and translation purposes. While East Asian studies focuses more on culture and history, so probably wouldn’t be as lucrative.</p>
<p>A lot depends on what you want to do. Generally speaking you’ll need to combine your area studies with some expertise in a particular discipline. If you want to go into business, make sure you take econ courses, or if your school offers them, business courses. Similarly with journalism, or museum administration. The State department–foreign service is one option, and if you have an ag background, the foreign agricultural service is yet another option. If you are interested in social work, there are opportunities to work with Chinese in that field as well.</p>
<p>It’s a fairly competitive field these days.</p>
<p>It all depends on what you want to do. In general, foreign language degrees are practically useless except for teaching said foreign language, which will of course require grad school. Earning a PhD in an East Asian Language can often be one of the most difficult things you will do in your lifetime, as well. As far as business and translation, a degree won’t do much good simply because of how competitive the market it is and how many native speakers there are. Reaching the fluency required to act as a translator will take many years, and on top of that you’ll need many years of experience simply to land a decent job in the field.</p>
<p>In adition, the careers where you utilize a foreign language usually pay about the same/worse as jobs which just require your native English. </p>
<p>However, an East Asian Language major can be extremely rewarding in life as long as you’re passionate about it, and high-paying careers can be found/created as long as you’re creative. </p>
<p>I earned my PhD in Japanese and am now doing my graduate studies in Mandarin. I definitely have never even for an instant regretted my dual major. Traveling and working in East Asia was the highlight of my life, and even if I am not making as much as an engineer I still make an average salary. And what’s better, I make money doing something I love 
Work for me is more like play than anything. </p>
<p>Major in what you’re passionate in and you won’t regret it. Being a teacher of East Asian Languages is extremely fun and rewarding even if you are loathe to become a teacher.</p>
<p>So, from what I gather from the previous posts, an interdisciplinary major in just East Asian Studies would not be too useful? It would be better to combine it with a major in a standard discipline or professional field?</p>
<p>Many East Asian Studies major programs that I’ve seen only require 2 years of language with a possible third year of study abroad. That seems insufficient to develop much language competency. Wouldn’t the best path be to double major in the language (e.g., Chinese) itself + a major in another standard discipline or professional field along with some area studies cognates?</p>
<p>If one majors in the Chinese language, is it do-able to double major? Or, is a Chinese language major so consuming that it would be too difficult to double major?</p>
<p>One more question: When I look at the graduate student rosters of many East Asian Language Departments, it seems that many of the students are either native or hertiage speakers of the language (e,g., Chinese)? Would a non-native or non-heritage speaker of the language be at such a decided disadvantage doing graduate work in this field that it would be an uphill struggle? Or, would a non-native or non -heritage speaker have just as much opportunity (based on his/her abilities) to compete on the basis of his/her scholarly achievements, e.g., in literature or other aspects of Asian studies? Would that person be better off in a comparative literature program or some other program?</p>
<p>Foreign language majors aren’t very useful for careers quite regardless of what double major you’re attaching it to. Majoring in an East Asian Language is something people usually do for the intrinsic value.</p>
<p>2 years? I don’t know of any programs that require so little. All the top colleges will require two elementary courses, two intermediate courses, and two advanced courses, with additional coursework in classical studies, modern literature, etc. Elementary-Intermediate courses in Mandarin tend to be mostly filled with people with a mild interest/people who already have strong knowledge and just are doing it for easy units. Advanced classes, however, are when the true challenge begins, and the workload becomes sometimes four times what it was in the elementary/intermediate levels.</p>
<p>Majoring in an East Asian Language is very consuming, yes, and can be one of the most difficult majors to choose from (as far as memorization goes, I can’t think of a major that requires even a tenth of that required for a Mandarin/Japanese major). Double majoring is very possible as long as you’re devoted, though, so don’t let that scare you. As long as you’re studying 4 hours a day on your own even the advanced classes are quite manageable. </p>
<p>As for graduate degree, yeah, most of the programs I’ve been involved with were definitely filled with natives who were getting the degree simply so they could teach here in the States. However, non-natives such as myself have a massive advantage over the natives: passion. People who learn a second/third language out of love for it can very often reach a level of fluency in the language that’s on a tier above native speakers, simply due to the sheer motivation and time a non-native will put into it.
When I first moved to Japan and China my problem was that natives often had difficulty understanding me: not because of flaws in my speaking, but because my vocabulary was around 20,000 words larger than theirs. My writing was especially incomprehensible for them, as they could read/write a bare minimum of 2,000 characters or so, while I was using about 16,000 at the time.</p>
<p>As you can see, sheer love for a language gives you an advantage over the natives, who often don’t put much time/effort into it since it comes so naturally to them. My Japanese and Mandarin vocabulary is probably twice the size of my native English, for example. On the flip-side of the coin, many Mandarin professors that fall in love with English end up wielding sublime prose that the average American can’t understand.</p>
<p>Natives always have the head start, but passion is more important in the long run, so don’t let it worry you. Just keep on studying :)</p>
<p>Madson, thank you, I appreciate your thoughtful response. </p>
<p>When I mentioned 2 years of language study, I was referring to some of the interdisciplinary East Asian area studies majors offered at many schools, not to a Chinese or Japanese Language & Literature major.</p>
<p>My interest in your replies to my questions has to do with my daughter who may pursue either a Chinese or East Asian Studies major. We had talked about the Pros and Cons of these majors, but we needed the more informed perspective, which you provided.</p>
<p>Her other strong interest is Classics, which she is considering as a possible major or minor along with a Chinese major. I think she’s concluded that if she attempts to double major in these areas, then she perhaps should limit herself to Latin instead of trying to do Greek as well. She has been studying both Chinese and Latin in her high school courses, though she understand the intensity will increase at the college level.</p>
<p>Some other questions: My daughter prefers to attend an LAC. However, at many schools, the depth of coursework in Chinese will be quite limited. She thought perhaps study abroad would help compensate for this. The alternative is to apply to a university, e.g., Wisconsin or Indiana perhaps, which would offer more extensive programs. Even in larger universities, Classics depts. tend to be among the smaller depts. and in that respect, she may still find some of the benefits of an LAC, even in the context of a larger university. What typically is the situation in East Asian language depts. at larger universities? Do these also tend to be smaller depts. (in terms of number of undergrad majors, faculty/student interaction, research vs. teaching focus, etc.)? </p>
<p>Though she has fairly strong credentials for admission to a good LAC, schools like Middlebury would be a bit of a stretch, and she’d probably find easier admission to an honors program at a university like Indiana. Based on your familiarity with various LACs and universities with good East Asian L & L depts., what schools would you recommend?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>East Asian Language departments are indeed usually quite small departments at university (handful of professors, 30 graduating students per year) and in the past year or so many have been suffering from funding. I don’t know too much about the situation on the other side of the country, but here on the West Coast many of the UCs have been forced to cut back on a lot of classes/teachers. Some colleges have even stopped offering the major entirely. Due to the small class sizes (about 20 or so usually) you can usually develop a lot of familiarity with your professors though. </p>
<p>The very best East Asian Studies programs in the country, in my opinion, are the ones at UC Berkeley, UCLA, Yale, and Harvard. I don’t know your family’s financial situation, but if your daughter is very serious about her choice and you have the funds, you might consider enrolling her into a California Community College for two years and then try having her transfer into Berkeley or UCLA. That may seem like a lot, but it can definitely be worth it. UC Berkeley has the finest East Asian department outside of Yale and Harvard, and also recently built a marvelous free-standing East Asian Library which is the largest in the world outside of East Asia. The massive population of native-Mandarin speakers at UCLA and UCB also provide great practice.</p>
<p>If that’s not an option, then I’d look at all the choices in your area, meet the departments, and maybe even look up reviews of the professors online. I am not too familiar with all the universities/programs in that part of the country, but I am sure you and your daughter can find somewhere she’ll be happy at. Studying abroad is definitely extremely important, and what many East Asian Majors do after earning their degree is to teach English in their East Asian country of choice for a year or two. There’s many programs out there, some of which will pay for her plane ticket over there, help her find housing, etc. The salary isn’t very high, about 30,000$ a year, but it’s enough to get by, travel, and experience the culture and country.</p>
<p>Spending a few years abroad prepares students for graduate school, which they’ll need full fluency in the modern language simply to get into. Where you got your undergraduate degree won’t matter too much for grad school either, so don’t worry if she goes to an LAC rather than an Ivy. Her experience, abilities, GRE, and letters of rec will be most important. If she loves China, she may even want to study at a university there rather than a grad school in the states. Europe also has many great East Asian programs, and Oxford’s is definitely comparable to the best ones here.</p>
<p>So, all in all don’t worry too much about WHERE she gets her undergrad degree, as it often doesn’t matter much in the long run. People get into Harvard’s East Asian grad school all the time with B.A.'s from pretty unknown colleges.</p>
<p>Zapfino - I am coming just from the perspective of a parent whose D wanted to choose a college where she could gain fluency in Chinese, for pleasure and the challenge. She applied and was accepted in to a number of large university programs but ultimately realized she wanted a LAC. For each of the schools she considered we looked at the departmental website and course offerings to determine if there were 4+ years of Chinese offered. We ruled out some LACs solely on the basis that they only offered 2 years of Chinese. She has taken 3 years of HS Chinese but will be attending Beloit College’s summer language intensive program starting in a few weeks. She will also attend Beloit in the fall. Her goal (as of now) is to take the summer intensive as a first year student, repeating her HS experience but focusing on the spoken language. Take second year Chinese next year and do the following year’s summer program as a third year Chinese student and do her fourth year of Chinese her sophomore year. She hopes to do study abroad in China her junior year and senior year focus on Chinese literature - all this for pleasure! </p>
<p>All of this rambling is to emphasize that some of the intensity of learning Chinese can be incorporated into a summer intensive program. Beloit’s is well established and they offer an excellent scholarship but obviously Middlebury and many other LACs will offer great summer programs as well.</p>
<p>As the mother of a student who once thought she would major in East Asian Studies (it will be her minor now), I can say that not all university language programs are created equal. As a high school student, she took Japanese language courses at a top 40 university through the intermediate level. She earned straight As. When she enrolled in her LAC, she took a placement test – and ended up at the beginning of intermediate simply because the previous university did not teach enough kanji. She learned Japanese much more thoroughly at her LAC.</p>
<p>As for what you can do with a bachelor’s in East Asian studies or Chinese language: about as much as you can with any non-preprofessional major.</p>
<p>Oberlin has a great Asian Studies program. Actually, the University of Indiana doesn’t have a bad program either.</p>
<p>I was away last week and didn’t have a chance to reply—</p>
<p>SimpleRules, I appreciate the information on Beloit as that is one of the schools that my daughter is considering. I think I saw on another thread that Beloit had quite a respectable number of East Asian Studies majors relative to other much larger depts/schools. One concern with smaller schools is that they may not offer 4+ years of Chinese, which also was one of your daughter’s considerations in choosing schools. It looks like your daughter has a workable plan that makes good use of summer intensive courses and study abroad.</p>
<p>My daughter’s other concern is whether to do an interdisciplinary East Asian Studies major vs. a Chinese language major (for more language training). If she chooses the former, she’d want to do a major in a traditional discipline as well. If she chooses the latter, she’s concerned that the intensity of the coursework may preclude attempting a second major or a minor in Classics (probably just Latin, in this case), her other area of interest. We’re thinking that at some point she will have to choose one or the other.</p>
<p>Momwaitingfornew, trying to find out about the quality of language instruction at various LACs has proven difficult. Since not every LAC offers Chinese, identifying schools that offer sufficient coursework in the area has been the first focus. If anyone has information on the actual quality of Chinese language instruction at various LACs (or, for that matter, unis with relatively small depts, where there’s appropriate attention to the needs of the undergrads), I’d be most interested.</p>
<p>It is a given that university programs will have the course offerings but if you are focusing on LACs more care is needed in the selection process. In addition to checking how many years of Chinese was offered we also checked to make sure that literature courses were offered IN Chinese. Not all LACs offered literature courses in Chinese, many are offered only in English. Also check to see if these courses are offered every year, many LACs offer some courses every other year, in one case we noted that the primary Chinese teacher was going on Sabbatical - you need to ask what happens then? Also try to get information on how long the program has been established and what overseas opportunities are offered if your D wishes this. My D particularly liked the locations of the Beloit program offering.</p>
<p>Classics are tough to research as well. Many years ago I had to change my classics major at a small LAC when the primary professor went on Sabbatical so I am very aware how risky this can be. Overall the selection process ends up being more of an art than a science but the more upfront info you can gather the better. In the end, after all our research I realize that my D may end up changing her mind and perhaps more than once! </p>
<p>I really hope you get some help from those who are in or have completed programs your D is interested in and not just from a newbie like me! You might want to post your questions on the individual college’s forum you are considering - though not all small LACs on CC have active threads.</p>
<p>East Asian Studies (as opposed to Chinese Language and Literature) requires interdisciplinary support in other departments: history, anthropology, government. You’ll need to take a look at the major requirements and then at the courses. What about electives? Do enough exist beyond the major requirements?</p>
<p>One caveat: while a non-Chinese can learn Chinese, it is extremely difficult to get a job teaching the language if you aren’t ethnically Chinese. It doesn’t matter how well you speak the language and the dialects. Teaching jobs open to non-ethnic Chinese would be in literature (taught probably in translation, although the knowledge would be gained through familiarity with the original language texts) and in the history/culture of the country. Non-teaching jobs with the degree would include international business/relations, state department/foreign service, National Security Agency and the like, and NGOs. But, of course, the student does not have to find a job that matches his/her degree. A lot of students major in something that ends up having little, if anything, to do with their future careers.</p>
<p>We just joined CC and this is all great information. My son is very interested in Asian Studies/international business. He is taking both Chinese and Japanese in high school. He is looking at liberal arts colleges on the west coast (especially California). Any suggestions?</p>