<p>I am seriously considering learning Mandarin Chinese, but I really don't know how beneficial that would be since I don't think I'll eventually have a career in marketing, for example, where it would be useful.</p>
<p>I think I will probably be majoring in either finance or accounting because I believe I have more quantitative skills... It's not that I'm overly shy or anything; I'm just good at math.</p>
<p>My registration for classes is less than a week away and I need to decide quickly whether I'll be taking the class or not.</p>
<p>Would it be a waste of my time to learn Mandarin? I don't intend on living in China or anything, but I'm told that China is where the money is at and I wanna get on that! Hahaha...</p>
<p>I'll be entering Bentley College next fall as a freshman in its honors program, if that matters at all.</p>
<p>But yeah.. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all.</p>
<p>learning another language can never be "useless". The world is becoming more global, and thus, knowing more than one language, even if it's "obscure" will only help, not hurt you. How much of it and which one you'll end up using is anyone's guess, but if you're willing to make the effort, why not? Who knows, perhaps you'll want to live somewhere besides the US, and there it will come in handy. Perhaps don't go with Chinese, because it's completely different from English and hard to learn, but being conversational in something like Spanish, French (pretty easy to learn I think, esp spanish) can really open up doors you don't even know of. Also, because business is becoming more international, I think it would be to your advantage to learn one. It's not going to kill you though, if you don't. The choice is yours...good luck.</p>
<p>I agree that learning another languagew ill never be "useless." However, if you're only starting to learn Mandarin as you enter college, you'll never attain any kind of serious proficiency in the language unless you devote a significant amount of time and number of years to it, something you do not appear to be interested in doing. You can achieve greater levels of proficiency in less time in languages like Spanish or French. </p>
<p>However, even if you don't attain high levels of proficiency, the ability to make some basic conversation, navigate alone in the culture, or understand some of the allusions of your hosts might go a long way in furthering any business dealings you may eventually have with people from that country, even if the actual business is transacted in English.</p>
<p>Actually, I'm very interested in learning Mandarin.. I just didn't know if I could justify learning the language just because I was interested in it.</p>
<p>I'm already very proficient in spanish, I believe.. I just don't have a real motivation to keep learning it. I honestly WANT to learn Mandarin.</p>
<p>I think I will probably take the class.</p>
<p>And thank you Dawgie.. I'm aware that Bentley is primarily an accounting school, but doesn't it hook up its finance grads with relatively nice jobs as well?</p>
<p>Finance grads get crappy jobs from Bentley, no exaggeration. The more interested you are in learning something, the chances of you succesfully learning it will increase. As someone mentioned, Chinese languages are pretty damn hard to learn.</p>
<p>Accounting and above "average" salary. This is what is going to happen if you try finance at Bentley. You are going to have a few kids that actually land IB positions, because they either have amazing connections, or they have a 3.90+ GPA and etc. Very few of course. The best job you will probably obtain otherwise is back office at some BB. Most of the graduates get utter trash.</p>
<p>About how many kids per graduating class would get the really good jobs, dawgie? I'm going to be in the honors program.. Will that help me significantly or not really at all?</p>
<p>Also, is there any way knowing a second language could somehow be helpful to a career where you actually do math? Like some kind of international consultant? What kind of major would one need to do that?</p>
<p>Honors program is a waste of time, won't help much. Also I have no idea what an international consultant is or even does. Depends what you define really good jobs.</p>
<p>Languages are useful for business. That's the general consensus. Regardless of that, learning any new language is one of the greatest college experiences you can ever have.</p>
<p>Advice for OP: don't waste time trying to learn Chinese or any other Asian language for that matter (if its for employment purposes. if it is for personal satisfaction then study away!).</p>
<p>Just put yourself in an employers shoes. You have this white guy (Im assuming?) who barely has elementary school level Chinese and a Chinese guy that speaks and writes Chinese/English fluently. Who would you hire for a international consulting job in China?</p>