<p>As an incoming Wellesley freshman I was wondering if it's feasible to double up on languages in college. I've done four years of French and love it, so I'm definitely continuing that. But I also would love to study Spanish, or potentially Russian since I've heard very good things about the department. </p>
<p>I know it's not recommended to double up on languages first year, but do people take two after freshman year ? (and are they still sane? lol). I'm thinking about a Linguistic/Cog Sci major or minor, and would like to study abroad in France for a semester. Thanks in advance for any input!</p>
<p>You can double up on languages but the scheduling can be a bit difficult. I wouldn’t recommend starting out with two new languages first year just because most beginning languages meet 4 to 5 times each week and that can limit all the other classes you want to take. However, you would most likely test in to a higher level French course, and since you are considering studying abroad in France, I would say take French your first year. Then sophomore year add on a new language. </p>
<p>I know a few people who have done this and they seem to be fine. You just have to manage your time well since most language classes have assignments due every day/ every other day or so.</p>
<p>If you’ve taken four years of French, you may well place out of the 201-202 sequence, and then your French language course will resemble a regular course in a foreign language, and not an introductory language course. Honestly I think it’s not so much a problem taking two languages first year as taking two first-year languages.</p>
<p>If you want to go to Aix junior year, you have to take a French class every semester and French 211.</p>
<p>I took two languages my first year, and I do not recommend it. I loved both languages, Russian and Japanese, but it was a lot of work. Both classes are very demanding, your schedule gets very busy. Japanese was every day, and Russian was 4 days a week. With my two other classes and swim team, it was a lot of tests/quizzes/etc.</p>
<p>Also, be careful about learning two languages at the same time. Whereas Russian and Japanese are completely different, learning French/Spanish or Spanish/Russian can be dangerous, since students tend to mix up the grammar and get even more confused.</p>
<p>I had already taken Japanese in high school, and I’m a heritage speaker of Russian, but taking two new languages right away would have been quite the challenge.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>I went to Wellesley and took Arabic (started with 101) and Spanish (started at the intermediate level). I would say that it was very doable, I ended continuing with boht languages and majoring in Spanish and another field for which Arabic proved useful. </p>
<p>The French department is very demanding though, I will caution you. My advice is that as long as one of the languages are is one with which you are familiar (i.e. French, since you’ve had 4 years of it in an academic setting, assuming your high school did a decent job of teaching it) picking up another is doable, demanding (as is most classwork at Wellesley) but doable.</p>