<p>So, I'm planning on majoring in IR and was wondering about language...as the title may suggest. Currently, I've taken 3 years of Spanish. Would it matter if I didn't take the 4th year, seeing as I probably won't continue it anyway...and will probably pick up a more appropriate language.</p>
<p>IR and foreign languages go hand in hand. most well known IR schools require you to master a FL. if you absolutely want to discontinue sticking to the language you're doing right now, try to decide on a another language to start up with and do that. it'll give you some leverage in college.</p>
<p>Definitely agree with ignited and would suggest that facility with two languages would improve your undergraduate experience and future job options. If you can stick to the Spanish and add another non-Romance language it will be to your advantage.</p>
<p>all the above advice is excellent -especially the advice about taking a non Romance language.
Keep Spanish -keep studying Spanish as this will be your primary secondary language -
However-the languages to study for IR
are presently-
Chinese, Russian, Korean, Farsi, Arabic, Urdu
Good luck to you from a old (very old) foreign language major.</p>
<p>highly recommended to study french if your goal is to work in an international organization. i'm working on chinese and spanish but when i went searching on internship options, i realized almost every major international organization requires or recommends a working knowledge of french. </p>
<p>stick with spanish for now and pick up your primary foreign language in college. also consider what you plan to do in IR (its a huge field) when deciding on that language. the ones bklynmom recommended are hot right now.</p>
<p>I want to study international relations too and took the initiative to learn another language before appyling. </p>
<p>I went to South America for a year and learned Spanish. You should definitely take advantage of what your being taught as Spanish IS an appropriate language.</p>
<p>You'll use it a lot. Trust me.</p>
<p>It really depends on what area of the globe you want to specialize in. If you are thinking about staying the U.S. and working, Spanish is definately the way to go. However, if you want to work in Europe you need to be bilingual in German or French (preferably a little bit of both), and Chinese and Japanese are crucial if you want to work in Asia.</p>
<p>Furthermore, many IR programs DO NOT require a foreign language. Many Foreign Policy schools do, but it really depends what you want to do with an IR degree. If you wish to go into foreign service, then being bilingual is obviously necessary. However, if you wish to take a more academic route and become a security analyst or work for a think-tank, or teach, being bilingual is not necessary for admission to graduate school.</p>
<p>I don't know flgirl04, about IR programs not requiring languages. Every graduate program I applied for in IR required languages and for the academic track at least a masters and preferably a Ph.D is necessary. I am a masters student in IR and currently work at a think tank where I often have the opportunity to use my languages. </p>
<p>GinPA, if you don't want to continue spanish that is your perogative and it's fine. I don't know how good your spanish is but it would be to your advantage to keep it up at a basic level at least, it could come in handy, esp. in the US. That said, I have not found spanish to be a fabulously useful language in think tank work but my area is europe mostly, I have had the opportunity to use French, German, and Russian (which in my experience is currently being belittled as no longer useful but there is tons of interesting post-communist analysis work being done and Russia is still a world player.) If you want something very contemporarily useful, go for a middle-eastern language or something like chinese. French is useful for a job in an int'l org like the UN. I think the first thing you need to do is narrow your areas of interest, that will tell you what languages you need.
Good luck</p>
<p>I am currently applying to IR programs for PhD's. Perhaps masters and PhD programs differ.</p>
<p>I wasn't aware that undergratuate programs in international relations had any requirement for foreign languages other than that required by the college for all applicants.</p>
<p>cailg - undergraduate programs do not, but some post-graduate programs do, others do not</p>
<p>cailg-some undergraduate programs do (GW for instance requires more language from students in the IR school than from students in the Arts and Sciences school), some don't.</p>
<p>hey me too! i'm stuck in the same exact situation as you, except now it's too late for me to sign up for spanish 5ap, seeing as how i haven't done any of the summer homework. instead i'm planning to take courses at my local community college, their language levels are a quarter each so i can finish up to a level 3 - it should probably also show initiative to the colleges i apply to as well, no? we should keep in touch, i'm pretty unsure of which colleges i should apply to that will be good for being a translator (possibly) in the future. =</p>
<p>i know english and spanish..and i'm going to learn russian in college. i know for sure that i want to do something in both eastern and western europe and possibly south america. i noticed most of you are saying that there are tons of possibilities for an IR major. I'm kind of lost here..any info would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I know this may seem pretty irrelevant but I love this major!! This major rocks the house esp. with a foreign language and I'm ready to get this started!</p>
<p>how relevent would a major in one language, minor in another be to employers? would the minor matter at all?</p>
<p>I doubt that a minor in a language matters. Often, many of the courses you might take for a language minor are not actually in that language--they're literature in translation, or history classes, or whatever. As long as you're proficient in a language, you can list it on your resume. (If you're fluent, put "fluent"; above-average, put "proficient"; literate, put "literate", and so on.)</p>
<p>That being said, I'm majoring in French, minoring in Russian, and I'm also taking German just for the heck of it. I've also taken a few semesters of Italian & am as close to fluent as I can get without living in Italy. My Russian minor requires a number of literature in translation & history classes; my French major is entirely in French; and I'm only taking German/Italian language classes. It depends on your school & what is offered.</p>
<p>just wondering, atmjunk. -where do you go
does it have an open curriculum?</p>
<p>How many languages is it feasible to take/start learning in college? Right now I am mostly fluent in Spanish (well, I can read and understand anything but I get a little rusty on speaking when I'm not around it for awhile) and I plan on continuing that in college. I pick up languages really quickly: I can read a little Italian and understand a lot of it when spoken with no classes (this is obviously due to its proximity to Spanish, but still...). I want to be fluent in four or five languages ideally...the above posts are all wonderful but I'm wondering which languages would be best to study if you don't know which type of career you want to go into with International Relations? I'm a senior in HS but I can potentially start studying some more on my own before college. Is it even feasible to gain fluency in five languages in less than five years (given a lot of study/living in an environment)?</p>
<p>passionflower - I go to a public LAC in Missouri (Truman State). Not exactly top notch, but definitely better than average. It has a pretty rigid core curriculum.</p>
<p>j07 - personally, I wouldn't want to start learning more than two languages at one time, and I'd want them to be very different as well (e.g. Chinese and German), but that really depends on you. I honestly don't know if you'd be able to gain fluency in 5 languages/5 years--maybe, if you stick to romance languages (or another language family)? If you know Spanish, Italian and French will both be incredibly easy--I know this from experience. Um, good languages for International Relations include Mandarin/Cantonese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, etc, etc. Basically, a whole bunch of really difficult languages. However, what's most important is studying the languages that interest you most. I could be learning Chinese right now, but I decided that German interested me more. One day I want to learn Yiddish and Croatian--not exactly the most useful of languages, but I still find them interesting, and that's what's important.</p>
<p>Hope this helped.</p>