<p>I am currently a psych undergrad learning french and spanish. i really want to add on Arabic but want to wait until i become fluent in the first two. im thinking about waiting until I am in graduate school, where i plan on getting a PhD in clinical psych and will take 5-7yrs. would it be a good idea to start a new language then? what about studying abroad too? Has anybody had any experience with this?</p>
<p>Studying abroad is very difficult in graduate school unless you are in a graduate program that lends itself to this (like anthropology, classics, Spanish literature). Clinical psychology is not one of those programs; between classes, clients, and research, you won’t have the time. There is the potential to write a Fulbright grant to do a year abroad but you would have to come up with some international research project that is essential to do overseas, and you’d have to get approval from your advisor. Most doctoral students who use a Fulbright use it to do their dissertation; it’s not just to get the fun study abroad experience. Basically, that is an undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>Basically, if you want to study abroad I strong encourage you to take 2-3 years off. If you want to learn Arabic, you may consider doing a Fulbright in one of the Middle Eastern countries. Fulbright has an English Teaching Assistant program for which you don’t have to write a full grant in Bahrain (intermediate Arabic recommended), Jordan (requires one year of Arabic), Morocco (where your French will help) and Oman (intermediate Arabic recommended). There are also programs through CIEE that have teaching abroad opportunities, and there are the JET and EPIK programs, which are in Japan and South Korea respectively. Also, you can find out if your college is one of the ones in the Watson Fellowship consortium, which gives you $25,000 to do the multi-country project of your dreams. Here’s the website: [The</a> Watson Fellowship](<a href=“watsonfellowship.org”>watsonfellowship.org)</p>
<p>You can definitely learn a new language in graduate school if you are good at time management. You can probably audit a language class at the university that would be covered by your funding, or you could take language classes for working adults in the city in which you live.</p>
<p>The other factor to bear in mind is that Arabic is a very challenging language for native English speakers, and requires years of sustained, intensive study in order to reach a reasonable level of proficiency (much less fluency). You may be able to audit or take language courses while in graduate school, but a PhD is a very intensive undertaking, and it’s unlikely that you would be able to give Arabic the time and energy that it requires without shortchanging your program.</p>
<p>So, as juillet suggested, definitely consider programs such as Fulbright that would allow you to spend time overseas. For summer study, other options include the Middlebury Language Schools, and Georgetown offers intensive Arabic courses (often with financial aid).</p>