<p>Hi guys, so i have a major question. I LOVE learning foreign languages. I have dreamed of continuing to be fluent in the three languages I'm learning now, and desperately want to pick up Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and French, especially during my "critical period." I know the longer i wait, the harder it'll become.
Here's my question.
What majors are available to those who LOVE languages? I'm not at all interested in becoming a translator or anything with politics. I'm thinking I could work with the CIA, but other than that, I don't know what else I could do. Maybe international business? I'm thinking of attending Dartmouth or Duke University, both of which are very expensive. My parents have told me that I can't just take a bunch of languages courses. I need a career plan, or courses/ a major that will get me eventually hired, or the money could be wasted, and I might as well just go to a cheaper school.
My first question is: what majors are available to those who LOVE languages? (not politics or translating) What jobs could I have?
My second question is: which language would be best to pick up? Have college students ever taken 2-3 languages at once? If so, would learning Japanese and Chinese at the same time ruin me or help me?
Thank you! </p>
<p>Have you been accepted to Duke and/or Dartmouth yet? You cannot simply choose to go to these schools. In fact they are so difficult to get in people with 3.8+ GPA’s can get denied entry.</p>
<p>Anyway, for people that love language I would suggest learning the romance languages and Mandarin first as most of the worlds literature is written in these. After those I would suggest German or Russian.</p>
<p>If you are serious about the CIA there are no 2 better languages then Arabic and Spanish.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking of Duke, perhaps also consider UNC, as there are two majors here that might help you: Global Studies and Peace War and Defense (PWAD)–the latter of which, I don’t think they have at other schools.</p>
<p>Both require a lot of language classes, as well as give you a good background in international politics, government and economics that can be used for working in government or the CIA. I will admit, I don’t know a lot about CIA hiring, but in general both are pretty good for government and defense work.</p>
<p>There is a list of “critical languages” that the US government is really interested in hiring, and a scholarship is available to those who want to study them: <a href=“http://www.clscholarship.org/”>http://www.clscholarship.org/</a> This isn’t a college scholarship as much as it is a summer study scholarship, but there is a list on their site of languages that they’re looking for, and if you study one or two of those it will really help you in getting government and defense jobs later on as well.</p>
<p>Best of luck! </p>
You’d be right at home in linguistics, probably, but it won’t make you proficient in any language. A lot of language classes, especially the first ~4 semesters, are 5 hours per week, so it’d be hard to take 3 at once (not necessarily the workload, but unit limits might prevent you from taking other courses you need to graduate). I took French and Hebrew concurrently one semester and it was fine, but the French was past the fourth semester and only met 3 hours per week.