<p>Hey everyone. I have a question to those of you who are interested in International Affairs and have finished undergrad.</p>
<p>I just finished my first year of Arabic at Columbia. Im looking to major in Econ and get a job dealing with international affairs and eventually apply to Columbia SIPA/Johns Hopkins SAIS/Gtown SFS.</p>
<p>My question is---How much will going out of my way to learn Arabic increase my marketability in terms of jobs/attractiveness to grad schools? Arabic last year was a bit tedious, the class definitely dominated my schedule in terms of time commitment. I hear next year it requires even more time and effort. </p>
<p>My question to those of you who are a few years down the same tract-- Do you wish you spoke a language like Arabic (or are you glad that you do)? How much does a skill like this matter? What proportion of time I devote to Arabic Lang/Culture vs things like Political Science and Economics? Has a skill like this been the difference between you getting a job and not being offered the position (or helped you into an Intl Affairs grad school program?)</p>
<p>I realize this varies widely depending on what kind of job you are considering and your individual background but I am interested in hearing your experiences.</p>
<p>I'm not a grad student but I am a fluent speaker of arabic and I have gotten job offers simply because I can speak the language. I go overseas to see my relatives during the summers so that is where I have met the employers. At the same time, I have been to places such as Dubai and I've met people at the head of various companies and they speak english very well. From what I've seen, employers from Arab and Middle Eastern countries with large companies speak English very well, however they do seem to give a plus to those who speak arabic. I'm not a grad student nor pursuing that sort of degree, but having experience overseas I thought that would give you an idea of the type of people you deal with there. </p>
<p>In general, traveling in the Middle East and North Africa I have seen a huge boom in various industries and it is definitely a booming place for business. Especially in fields such as construction since the infrastructure in some of these countries is very poor. For that reason I consider Arabic a useful language. I have spoken it since I was little but I know it is definitely a difficult language to learn. Good luck, I hope that this answer helps you in some way.</p>
<p>Arabic definitely helps you get looks when applying for jobs. However, keep in mind that you will always be competing against fluent and/or native speakers.</p>
<p>You can be assured of finding a job somewhere doing Arabic, but unfortunately many of those jobs are, quite frankly, tedious. These are jobs like translating documents or voice transcription. In many cases you'll also need a clearance for that, and in my opinion a clearance would get you further.</p>
<p>So Arabic is helpful, yes, but probably only as a supplement to other skills which you'd be acquiring in grad school or work experience. Concentrate on those other things -- you've already been exposed to Arabic language and culture and that's about as much as you'll be able to milk it for.</p>
<p>I think the IR programs only care about it so much as you can pass a proficiency exam in it and graduate. Do you speak anything else?</p>
<p>to define "going out of my way" to learn Arabic: my school has a language requirement of two years, which I could have bypassed with 1 semester of Spnaish instead of 4-6 semesters of Arabic.</p>
<p>Really it depends how much you are about learning Arabic. If you're going to learn it just for the sake of the job, it's going to be much harder than say, you're doing it because you love the language.</p>
<p>If it was tedious, don't do it until you can really appreciate the richness of Arabic language and culture. I've taken several language courses and I enjoyed the ones where I appreciated the culture far more those that were just for requirement or practical purpose.</p>
<p>Especially that you'll be investing time and money now that you're out of school to learn this language.</p>
<p>Actually, could we limit the thread to a discussion of how your experiences/knowledge of arabic has applied to your career and/or grad school experience.</p>
<p>I'm not looking to have my motivations judged or for opinions on my intellectual maturity. Users of this forum can use the information from your knowledge of applicability to make up their own minds, whatever their situation. I realize I made the topic more broad at the start in asking for advice, but I think it would be best if the topic were limited to avoid overreaching opinions, such as linking my opinion of the course with my ability to appreciate culture.</p>
<p>Alsikander, I really don't think anyone was judging your motivations or your intellectual maturity (or your ability to appreciate culture, for that matter!). Everyone gave you very sound advice, don't take offense at comments that weren't made with the intention of offending. </p>
<p>Ticklemepink made a very good point - I myself appreciate the culture very much and I think the language is beautiful, but after a semester of an intensive Arabic course that got me nowhere, I realized my heart just wasn't in it. Does that make me any less intellectually mature? I hope not. I just realized that I'd be competing for jobs with native speakers and that I didn't have the passion necessary to see it through.</p>
<p>"I just realized that I'd be competing for jobs with native speakers..."</p>
<p>Does anyone know how valid of a concern this is? In a typical career in International Affairs, how prevalent are native Arabic speakers? How drastically does this diminish the marketability of learning it as a second language?</p>
<p>Furthermore, I know these questions may be getting a bit too specific for CollegeConfidential. Does anyone know of another online resource/forum that would be more appropriate for my question's specificity?</p>
<p>I did not mean to criticize you like that. But it's just hard to get past first year when you start cranking down the language in order to become more proficient and that's when the instructors start blasting you with short stories, films, radio, and any other type of multimedia to help you learn the language.</p>
<p>I would not worry so much about the native speakers. They'll make the same grammatical and pronounciation mistakes as you when you reach high level of proficeincy. The question is, can you communicate quickly and efficiently between English and Arabic? Remember, we have lots of American journalists abroad and they live there, they don't travel back and forth to and from the US. By living in that city and country, they most definitely picked up the language and communicated with the locals to get an idea of what's going on. Is spending a lot of time in the Middle East something that you want to do as part of your career?</p>