<p>Greetings! I am still a HS student, but i have some questions that I feel will not be answerable by College Reps or the Admissions Office.
1) I want to major in Bio and Minor in Spanish (Pediatrician). That is because many latin american people are living in the US and I feel it may be easier for them to understand what i am saying if i say it in Spanish, because Spanish is their first language. Is it possible to be in Pre-Med and Minor in a subject that has nothing to do with premed?
2) Is minoring in a second language hard?
3) How is the Spanish Department at WashU? Good Professors? Interesting Classes?</p>
<p>-FYI I am taking Spanish right now in high school and plan on trying to be fluent when i become older.
-Spanish is my third language so i may have some trouble. </p>
<p>1) Obviously, minoring in spanish as a pre med is allowed by the university. However, your plan will require a lot of effort to pull off. I’m majoring in bio and math, and while I can say a spanish minor would be possible, it doesn’t leave you with much wiggle room to explore other interests you may have. If you’re confident that is what you want, it shouldn’t be that much of a deterrence though.</p>
<p>2) Depends how good you are with languages, haha. Language courses are usually pretty intensive, and it simply wasn’t for me (I dropped the 300 level spanish course I signed up for first semester freshman year). You mentioned it’s your 3rd language, so it appears you are at least proficient in picking them up.</p>
<p>3) Not too familiar with the professors or courses, seeing as how I’ve had a total of two classes worth of experience, haha. I will say that part of the reason I dropped is that my professor had a strong East Asian accent, exacerbating my difficulty in understanding spoken spanish.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn’t really consider getting a minor in Spanish if you are really interested in just learning the language. There are plenty of opportunities to learn the language without having to take extra courses such as literature or culture classes. I agree with Ryan that it may be somewhat difficult to explore other classes if you are doing a minor in addition to your premed courses.</p>
<p>Others may disagree, but I would drop the Spanish minor if I were you. Here’s why:</p>
<p>As Ryan (edit: and PsychoDad) said, electing to minor in Spanish could limit your ability to branch out and take classes in other departments. Biology is a pretty intensive major, and foreign language classes at Wash U are pretty time-consuming as well. If you really wanted make some other Spanish study part of your career, a minor wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. But that’s not the case; you just want to learn the language. With that in mind, any amount of Spanish classes you manage to take in college will only help you. So I think you’ll find it better to take your Spanish classes while comfortably taking any other classes you want than to potentially restrict yourself by declaring a minor.</p>
<p>Thinking long term, speaking fluent Spanish will be a great skill for your career. But the thing that will matter to employers is that you’re a fluent speaker. What do you think they’ll care about more: that you minored in Spanish many years ago or that you speak the language fluently? Obviously the latter. So load yourself up with a comfortable amount of Spanish classes while pursuing any other interests you might have, with the goal of working toward fluency at some point in your life.</p>
<p>I can’t really think of any good reason to get a minor.</p>
<p>Yeah, they’re 6 courses. It’s doable, but it is still somewhat restrictive - even more so if you wish to take more than the minimum requirements for the minor; this might be the case if you want to become fluent in the future. But I agree, it’s doable.</p>
<p>I see no reason to immediately scrap the idea of a minor. While it may not help to have it on your transcript (because an employer will care about fluency, not the actual minor), the minor will at least give you some focus to stay on track. If you complete it, great!; if not, not a big deal.</p>
<p>Also of note, I know a lot of pre-med/pre-dental/pre-pharm kids who have a primary major in a language. You don’t have to major in something like bio to be premed - you just need to meet the requirements (a year of bio, a year of chem, a year of ochem, etc).</p>
<p>(Somewhat) fun fact: WashU offers a course in Spanish for Medical Studies. As I understand from friends who have taken it, the class teaches you terminology you would use in a medical setting that you wouldn’t necessarily learn from a typical spanish class (ie terms for diseases, etc.). And it can count towards a minor/major.
See here: [Medical</a> Spanish | Romance Languages and Literatures](<a href=“http://rll.wustl.edu/spanish/courses/wucrsl/L38/353/SP2013]Medical”>http://rll.wustl.edu/spanish/courses/wucrsl/L38/353/SP2013)</p>
<p>There’s similar courses for Business Spanish & other topics involving culture.</p>
<p>Edit: just realized I didn’t get to your third question regarding the department. I don’t know many people in Spanish, but I know quite a bit in the Romance Language Department as a whole (and I’ve taken Italian). The general consensus I’ve gotten is that the professors are great and it’s a wonderful department to be a part of.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. Ill reconsider the spanish minor… Is it possible to take like Spanish Medical Class(on website). And does anyone know that Immunolgy is interesting/fun?</p>
<p>FYI, minors tend to be 15 credits (5 three credit courses, although there are some 4 credit language courses. No problem to minor in anything at WU. There is one rule that no one else has mentioned: let’s call it the “rule of 3”. Unless WU changes, which they do with annoying regularity, you will be limited to a combination of 3 majors or minors, even if you accumulate enough credits.</p>
<p>I am very interested in taking the Spanish Medicine class or whatever its called. So i probably will take up a major in Spanish. And do any of you know if Immunology is any fun/interesting? I have an urge to take it because the rest of the courses in the A section of the biology major seems to be a bit boring…</p>
<p>I see, you don’t like learning about how microscopic organisms survive, just how we kill them Hahaha</p>
<p>From the student evals, it seems as though it’s a fairly good class - challenging yet informative. I understand that as the surveys are voluntary, there may be self-selection bias, but I think that is a fair representation of most bio courses at washu.</p>
Hahaha</p>