concerned about grad English lit. foreign language requirement

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello, there. I'm an American double-major in English literature and Japanese, about to enter my third year of undergrad. I want very much to attend a good graduate school with the eventual goal of earning a PhD in English literature, but I'm concerned about the foreign language(s) proficiency requirement. You see, I never studied another language besides Japanese and American Sign Language, and because of my double-major, I don't have room in my schedule to take courses in other languages, nor the time to try and teach myself a language. Since I want to concentrate in British Romanticism, my knowledge of Japanese is not exactly relevant. </p>

<p>Do I have any hope of being accepted into a selective American grad program for English lit.? To give you a little more background information, I'm a good student: I have a 3.93 overall GPA (and a 4.0 in English lit.), I work two jobs, and I have minor involvement in school activities. Also, I have written app. 30 pages of a paper that I plan to turn into my senior thesis, on a topic that relates to the area in which I wish to concentrate in grad school. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your time and opinions.</p>

2

<p>your grades look excellent, but your work experience and involvement in school activities do not matter in grad school admissions unless your job was as a research assistant to an english professor. i’d recommend dropping the school activities and, if it was financially possible, dropping one of the jobs in order to make time for language classes. just because a BA only requires 120 credits (for example) to attain, that doesn’t mean you won’t end up taking 142 credits (or whatever other number) in order to get all the courses that you need before moving into grad studies. just as an example, i had enough credits to get my BA after only 3 years of school, but i ended up doing 4.5 years simply because i needed language classes.</p>

<p>i’m not sure what languages are required for most english lit programs since i’m a history student myself, but for humanities in general students should have some knowledge of french or german, if not both. since you’re just entering third year, you’ve got plenty of time to pick up another language besides japanese. look into “french for reading” courses at your school instead of conversational french classes (or german, if you decide to study german) because it’ll get you reading proficiency a lot quicker than regular language classes would and that’s all you really need for grad school.</p>

<p>also, if you’re really serious about getting a PhD in english lit, and you’re positive that you won’t want to study japanese literature at the grad level, consider switching the japanese major to a minor. having the courses on your transcript is more important than whether or not it’s classified as a major or a minor, and that could give you enough time in your schedule to get in other language classes.</p>

<p>and an unsolicited anecdote for you, just to prove that these language requirements aren’t that silly: i study latin american and caribbean history and figured i’d need spanish, french, portuguese, creole languages, and indigenous languages, and that’d pretty much cover it. while going through research for my master’s thesis, i found an extremely useful archival collection that i will have to at least address, if not incorporate heavily, and most of it is in… german.</p>

3

<p>First, for the language exams, it doesn’t matter which two languages you study, although it would behoove you to choose one that might help your research in British romanticism.</p>

<p>Next, I just looked at the Princeton English PhD program for its admissions requirements, figuring that this was a good representative of a “selective” program:</p>

<p>–fluent English, if you are not a native speaker
–a reading knowledge of 1 or 2 foreign languages
–high GRE scores, especially in the Verbal and Subject tests
–three strong letters of reference, from people who know your writing
–consistently high grades in literature courses for a B.A. or M.A.
–an interesting array of extracurricular activity
–a superior sample of critical writing approximately 25 pages in length, preferably in the field you propose to study
–a concise personal statement that describes why you wish to study at Princeton</p>

<p>Don’t drop your ECs, as StrangeLight suggested, since Princeton does take them into consideration; I wouldn’t be surprised if other top schools do as well. (Note: ECs aren’t generally important in the sciences unless one applies to med school.) </p>

<p>Next, note the reading familiarity in 1 OR 2 languages. Yes, you’ll have to pass the language exams in two languages before you get the PhD, and no, they don’t have to be the old-school French or German. It can be any two languages. I know how difficult it is to read in Japanese, so you may have to complete that double major to make sure that you can read Japanese literature. You may, as StrangeLight suggests, be able to switch to a minor if you already have proficiency. If you do this, I’d recommend that you take at least one Japanese class a year so your knowledge doesn’t fade.</p>

<p>Since you have two years left of undergraduate, I suggest that you pick up another language to make you more competitive. Pick the language both for its relative ease and for the country’s literature you most like. You won’t have a full reading ability, but at least you’ll be on the way so you can pass the language exam in grad school. For British romanticism, French seems like the logical choice, given both the history of romanticism and the relationship between the two countries. (My daughter studied both French and Japanese in high school and college, and found the languages different enough that she didn’t confuse them.) Spanish, however, is probably the easiest language for a native English speaker to pick up – and Latin American literature is fascinating.</p>

<p>By the time you finish your junior year, you probably won’t feel this requirement to be as daunting as you do now. A lot happens between the end of sophomore year and the end of junior year to ready you for further study.</p>

4

<p>I’m sorry it took me a while to respond, but I did want to thank you, StrangeLight and Momwaitingfornew, for your advice: it really helped my thought process, and I feel a little better about it now. Thanks so much!!</p>

5

<p>With all respect to Momwaitingfornew - the statement “It can be any two languages.” is a bit overbroad. </p>

<p>The purpose of aquiring reading knowledge in 2 languages is to be able to read current (and historical) scholarship in your field in those languages. When thinking about modern languages, the question to be answered is this: “Is there significant scholarly publication in LANGUAGE X relevant to my field.” If the answer is yes, you’ll still have to make the case to your department, but it then becomes a matter of paperwork and signoffs. </p>

<p>As soon as you’re back in school next fall (or sooner if possible) you want to meet with the professors who will be writing your LORs and get their advice. The level of competition for humanities grad school spots is too high to depend on message board comments. (One exception on the humanities side is Professor-X, who, oddly enough, is an actual humanities professor. S/he has commented on the language issue and ECs before - use the search function to find the threads.)</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

6

<p>Thanks, WilliamC! I’ll definitely look up those threads. I’ll definitely be in touch with my profs about this, but I always feel better getting a good array of opinions.</p>

7

<p>Wow, I just used “definitely” twice. Really bugs me…</p>