<p>for a tough language (Arabic)...how much will you learn if you do a minor a reputable school and how much would you learn if you major in it?</p>
<p>as another potential arabic major, i think it depends a lot more on the strength of the school’s program than whether you major or minor in it. try to do research on how reputable a school’s program is in the language and base your decisions on that rather than whether or not it offers a major, since minoring in a language at a better school would give you more skills than majoring in it at a lesser school. for arabic specifically, one thing i’ve been looking out for is schools that offer classes in the dialects - since no one actually speaks modern standard arabic, schools that offer classes in levantine arabic and egyptian arabic could better prepare you for actually speaking the language. also look into study abroad programs since those’ll help more with the language than studying it here. there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to studying a language, so in the bigger picture, whether you major or minor in it doesn’t matter all that much.</p>
<p>thanks for the response…however I want to do Arabic in addition to either Economics or Business (depending on what college I go to)…so it’s more a case of double majoring vs majoring in economics and minoring in Arabic…which is why I’ve geared my college choices more towards the strength of their business/economics programs.</p>
<p>the two schools I’m considering (in case anyone knows how good their Arabic/Near Eastern Studies programs are) are NYU and USC…I’ll definitely want to spend at least a semester in an Arab speaking city (Abu Dhabi for NYU, Amman for USC). good advice into looking into which dialects are taught too…I’m finding it really hard to decide on which dialect I’d want to learn (in addition to MSA) but I guess I just have to go ahead and pick one.</p>
<p>Overall though, at the average top 30 college, how fluent would a major or minor and a few months in an arab city make me? I’m not aiming for absolut fluency, but at least intermediate fluency (ability to read easier books/newspapers/websites in arabic and ability to speak it competently (even without necessarily having a great vocabulary). I’d be happy to spend a few years in the middle east after college bringing my level up to /(as close as I can get to) complete fluency.</p>
<p>^I guess that largely depends on how good you are at learning a language. I doubt that a few classes woud do the trick, so majoring would probably be for the best. Neither of the schools you mentioned (NYU and USC) are particularly well-known for Arabic and, just based off of a quick look at their website, don’t have Arabic as a major or a particularly broad selection of courses if you’re really serious about Arabic.</p>
<p>[Course</a> Offerings | MEIS | NYU](<a href=“Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies”>Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies)</p>
<p>However, Georgetown offers it as a major and would probably better suit your interests.
[Department</a> of Arabic and Islamic Studies - Georgetown College - Georgetown University](<a href=“http://arabic.georgetown.edu/]Department”>http://arabic.georgetown.edu/)</p>
<p>Middlebury College in VT also has a strong Arabic program.
[Arabic</a> | Middlebury](<a href=“Arabic | Middlebury College”>Arabic | Middlebury College)</p>