<p>To be honest, the foreign language requirement is making me really scared to go to the school! hahaha i hate foreign language and i thought i would be done forever. Idk if i can handle the agonizing pain of a language again.....</p>
<p>Can you test out via SATII or AP scores? You’d also be taking a placement test during the summer which might help you out as well.</p>
<p>Try to test out.</p>
<p>I took the AP French exam my senior year and got a 3. That ended up being enough. It’s not a very high standard… I think a 3 represents something between 50-60%. I’m not proficient in French at all! </p>
<p>To be honest, the foreign language requirement is garbage. There are going to be very few useful languages in the future. By forcing students pick one+ out of a much larger number than will be valuable to them, schools are doing students (their customers) a disservice. UVa alone isn’t guilty however, colleges and universities across the country are responsible for this mistake.</p>
<p>^Again, nothing against UVa by itself. More a beef with the higher education industry as a whole.</p>
<p>Review before the placement test, especially if you haven’t taken the language in awhile. Go over verb conjugations and tenses, gender agreement, word order rules, irregular forms, common vocabulary and idioms, and so on. I don’t know about other languages, but unlike the College Board Subject Test the UVA Spanish placement test does not have a listening or speaking component–it’s just reading knowledge, and anybody who’s taken 3 years of high-school level Spanish should not find it too hard. </p>
<p>Even if you don’t entirely place out, you may only have to take a semester or so of a language you’ve already been exposed to.</p>
<p>Is the UVA placement test timed in any way or is your score influenced by how long you take? I’m just trying to prepare myself the best I can before I take it. Also taking the SAT II in May. Doing whatever I can to place out of this requirement as my prospective schedule is already loaded without it :)</p>
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<p>Er, flat out false. Being able to speak another language fluently, no matter which language it is, is infinitely more valuable than having an elite college name (UVA) on your resume. Especially with the advent of the Internet, foreign languages open whole new horizons in terms of culture and even academia (need I mention job opportunities?). The world isn’t as small as everyone thinks it is, and not everyone interesting speaks English.</p>
<p>Thank you lullinatak! In these days and age I just don’t understand this attitude towards foreign languages.</p>
<p>Luckily I’ll be placed into Spanish 201 then just finish 202 and I’ll be done. Taking 4 years of Spanish in high school exempts me out of 101, 102 and 106 :D</p>
<p>I don’t plan on doing that great on the placement test so I guess a year of Spanish won’t kill me. I hope :</p>
<p>OK, this lullinatalk is clearly ill-informed. </p>
<p>He/she would rather be fluent in Greek than go to Harvard? Speak Kazakh instead of graduating from MIT? The world population (at least the part that controls the majority of the wealth) is converging on a small number of languages. The internet is pushing us in that direction. There is far more value in an elite diploma than a working knowledge of an obscure language.</p>
<p>An elite college name can help you get a great job. How many great jobs in Kazakhstan are there?</p>
<p>^ boom! Roasted.</p>
<p>We’re not talking necessarily about “small” languages. When did knowing Chinese, Arabic, German, Spanish, French or Russian become worthless? Many of these languages are official UN languages, and others are important for business or even offering advantages for employment by the government.</p>
<p>I said we were converging on a small number of languages. Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Spanish would be included in the list languages that will remain significant. German not so much… Most schools allow you to pick the “bad languages”, though it’s your fault for picking them.</p>
<p>I am speaking from experience. I am an international student fluent in two languages, English and Korean (my mother tongue). So Korean probably isn’t one of your “useful” languages, probably even less “useful” than Greek. It’s isolated and not widely spoken. Yes, I would choose to be bilingual rather than have a degree from Harvard or MIT. The entire Asian culture is available to me when I’m able to speak Korean. There are so many books and other written things that you miss out by only speaking English. Ever heard of The Romance of Three Kingdoms or Rashomon? Must-reads for anyone Asian, and not even 10% of the English-speaking population has heard of them. Also, the Internet is largely written. When you are able to access a certain section of the Internet, you have access to the entire culture that uses that language. I kid you not. Do you think most of the American culture is on the Internet? Betcha it is. I don’t know how to even begin to explain the advantages of being bilingual. You will understand when you are bilingual.</p>
<p>This seems like one we’re going to have to agree to disagree on.</p>
<p>I honestly wish you the best.</p>
<p>Back to the initial question by Badapingpow… I was less than enthused with Spanish and my Spanish teachers in high school. When I entered UVA, I took a new language, Russian, and the experience was fantastic. I have heard the German department is very good as is the French department. You may be surprised to find that your lack of enthusiasm for foreign language has more to do with how you were taught in high school… Give it a chance! In Singapore, our school offers Mandarin from middle school through high school and I know one student in particular who was so disengaged from Mandarin (despite taking it for 6 years at our school), he never pursued AP Mandarin, depsite being more than capable. Well, he entered UVA 2 years ago and absolutely loves it now! He is planning to minor in Mandarin and major in Systems Engineering…So you never know…Your experience in high school may not be the same at university…</p>
<p>thanks! i guess the question now is should i pick up French again, even though i was pretty pad, but at least im familiar, or should i go all exotic and take like Japanese hahaha</p>
<p>@6281597: If anything, the foreign language requirement just opens you up. Is broadening your perspective on things bad? No, I don’t think so. It’s exactly that type of “English only” attitude that restricts free thought and enjoyment. Just relax man, let people do what they want. You think art history majors have too much employment opportunity? Not at all, but still people choose to take it. Language is a requirement, so the argument isn’t exactly correlated, but the idea stands. </p>
<p>By the way, it’s not all about prestige. If you get D average at UVA, good luck finding a job, regardless of prestige. </p>
<p>One more thing, one of the largest indicators of intellect is bi/tri-linguality. There’s a reason many people give Asians the “smart kid” stereotype; a lot of it has to do with speaking multiple languages.</p>
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<p>Sorry, back to the main thread… I wouldn’t worry so much about it. Since it is a requirement, the classes typically aren’t insanely hard, unless language seriously just bends you over (pardon the immaturity). And as tennisq said, you never know…</p>
<p>You literally can’t graduate from UVa with a D average. The minimum GPA is a 2.0. </p>
<p>The smart Asian stereotype has hardly anything to do with languages. It’s all about math/science/computer skills. Go ask 10 people on the street “what are Asians good at?” I’d wager that very few, if any comment on bilinguality first.</p>
<p>What people think isn’t necessarily the truth. Just because Wall Street people say Asians are smart because they are good at computers doesn’t mean that language has no effect on interest and a broadening of perspective.</p>