<p>I’m planning on majoring in a science at Brown as that has always been my strongest area of interest. Despite this, I also am very infatuated with foreign culture. I’d like to take a foreign language course next year, but am not sure what I should consider when picking which one. I’ve taken a couple years of German, but my school’s language department is rather abysmal. Should I just pick a language I think is interesting or am I missing something more important here?</p>
<p>Also, should I consider study abroad if I am in a science field?</p>
<p>I'm not sure what your school offers, but here are a couple of things to consider when picking a language:
--personal interest -- maybe you'd like to learn the langauge of your family's culture or a culture that seems interesting to you.
--usefulness -- how many people in the world speak the language? In the United States? You won't get much opportunity to use German outside of Germany, but a language like Spanish will be useful here in the US as well as numerous countries abroad. Studying Latin won't get you far conversationally, but it'll improve your vocabulary (and verbal test scores).
--Challenge -- romance languages like Spanish, French, and Italian, and Germanic languages like German and Dutch are fairly easy to learn from English. Languages from related but more removed groups (Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic) or even unrelated langauges (Japanese, Swahili, etc) will be far more challenging. Generally, the more different a language is from English, the longer you'll have to study before it'll be of any use to you. Two years of college level Spanish will get you to a fairly fluent conversational and basic reading level, whereas two years of college level Korean might not be of much use to you in Korea. Depending on what you want to get out of the class, and how good you are at languages, difficulty could be a plus or a minus.</p>
<p>And yes, you should absoluely consider studying abroad if you are in the sciences! It may be a little challenging if you are going for an Sc.B. (more credits required), but you can still probably make it work. The more you can do to broaden your perspective, the better scientist you'll be.</p>
<p>Thank you ILoveBrown! That seems to be good advice. </p>
<p>I was wondering, I've heard that all of Brown's study abroad programs are conducted in the language of the country you live in. If this is the case, does anyone know what the options are for people who are only fluent in English?</p>
<p>Nope, not all.</p>
<p>Some are conducted completely in English (programs in England, as well as in some other countries).</p>
<p>Some are conducted mainly in English but include intensive training in the language of the country, for those who are just beginning the language.</p>
<p>Some are conducted in a combination of English and another language for people with some experience with that langauge, and then include intensive training in that language (I think the program in Prague is like this, for example).</p>
<p>Some are conducted entirely in another language.</p>
<p>Also, you don't have to go through a Brown program. You can do a Brown-approved program from another school, or find a program that Brown hasn't approved yet and get it approved (from what I hear, they try to make this really easy to do).</p>
<p>For more information: <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/OIP/programs/brownprograms.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Administration/OIP/programs/brownprograms.php</a></p>
<p>Brown-approved programs by language (including English): <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/OIP/programs/altprogramsLANGUAGE.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Administration/OIP/programs/altprogramsLANGUAGE.php</a></p>